A child of God educating other children.

We are home! Actually, we've been home for a couple days. I've actually kept myself kind of busy already being home. This time leaving my family was harder than I expected. I really miss them, but am grateful for the time we had with them. To finish up our vacation...

Sunday, 27th
Woke up to go to Sunday School with the youth ages. Tim told the youth pastor we'd go in. Tim likes to see how others do ministry. It was really good, I enjoyed getting to see students who I hadn't seen in 2 years, and split up in groups to work. Then we had service which was way different than what they usually do because it was VBS kickoff Sunday. We even had a picnic outside after service for it. Texas heat outside was actually pretty nice in the shade. After about 10 minutes it feels good. I was really looking forward to getting some heat, our house has actually been a little cool the last 2 days with the breeze coming through the windows. Anyways...Sunday afternoon I took a nap and went shopping in Katelin's closet. I got some old stuff back and some really nice new stuff for me! That was fun! And a memory I'll have every time I wear her stuff. Then in the evening we went to youth group with Katelin, and came home to a fresh shrimp snack. Yummm!

Monday, 28th
Woke up semi-early, said bye to Mom and Katelin at the church while helping out with VBS. Then Dad drove Tim and I to Carrollton to Sarah's house for a short visit. We said bye there, again making me homesick for my family already. It was so nice to visit with Sarah. I really appreciate her friendship and love hanging out with her and her husband. After about 30 minutes Sarah and Joe drove us to Redeemer (our old church) to hang out with the youth kids there. It was so great to see all of them and hear about what all they're doing now. Going off to college, going to be seniors, and really growing up! Two of the youth drove us to the airport which was a great treat. They were just starting to drive when we were there. The flight was good, I finished my "The Biggest Loser" book and got really inspired to start their total body work out on top of my cardio...that's a whole other blog. We got to Minnesota in the evening, waited around a while to get taxied to our car, then had a quick visit with Tim's brother Dan and his wife Maggie. They were so kind to have some dinner for us. Then off to our house!

I am really glad that we got to go to Texas. I wish we were able to see my brother Jon and my best friend Brianne. Next time we're down we'll have to make a point to make that happen. Pray for me 'cause I am homesick and wish we were living closer to my side of the family right after visiting. But I know that we are in the place where God wants us now. There's no doubt that we're in God's will, it is just hard at times.

Posted in: ministry, texas, vacation on Thursday, July 31, 2008 at at 7:57 PM 0 comments    

I haven't posted in a while, and would like to wait until we get home, but I don't want any more time between my posts. This vacation has been pretty interesting, with lots of ups and a few downs, but definitely worth doing. Here's our schedule of what we've done.

I apologize now for a long post. Hopefully you can skim it if anything.

Friday, 18th
Flew to DFW, sat around the airport for an hour before picking up our rental car; Visited PSI where I use to work. Oh my goodness it was so wonderful to see everyone. God really blessed me with such a wonderful place to work. I miss those people so much! Then we ate lunch with Edna Jane, a lady who Tim use to help with her computer. We went to Fry's Electronics, ate dinner with Katie, Laura, and her boyfriend (friends from Tim's childhood), then spent the night hanging out at the Minters.

Saturday, 19th
Woke up early to a wonderful breakfast at the Minters. It was so good to hang out with Debra and her family again! We drove up to Oklahoma City, returned our rental car, and hung out at grandma and grandpa Wayman's house with cousins. Then spent the night at a hotel.


Sunday, 20th
Tim and I went to Sunday School at G'ma and G'pas church in their young adults class. Then we went to service with all of our family and cousins. We visited my Great Uncle Claxton in the nursing home, and later that evening found out he passed away. Went back to the hotel early to rest up.

Monday, 21st
Drove up to Roman Nose, OK with my parents and sister. My Dad use to vacation there when he was a kid. We drove around the resort, took pictures, and ate a wonderful dinner. I got a chicken friend steak and fried okra, one of my favorite southern meals! Then after our super heavy dinner we went for a walk on their hiking trail, ending up spending one and a half hours out there. Lots of fun!

Tuesday, 22nd
Mine and Tim's 2 year anniversary! We woke up early and headed out to the farm. Dad bought some land in the family and is building a barn our where I grew up fishing with my Grandpa. Tim kept on saying how nice it'll be to take our grandkids out there on vacation. I'm excited to be able to keep on going out to the farm. We have lots of great memories out there. For lunch Tim got to experience how much the Waymans (my maiden name) stay in touch. We ate at the Wayman cafe and figured out how we were related to the people there. It was a new and funny experience for Tim being in a small country cafe where the whole restaurant talks to each other. Oh! And we all got to take turns driving my Dad's tractor. We also went out to see the Oklahoma Salt Plains in Jet, OK. Dad had to give Tim the tour of everything we grew up with. We also went to the dam out there and watched the fish try to swim up it. Pretty funny to watch, and huge fish out there! This was a long country day for our anniversary. I loved it! Wanna guess what the high was for the day? 108! Ouch!

Wednesday, 23rd
Horse back riding! The resort had stables where we could rent some horses to go on a trail ride. The horses are so use to the trail that we didn't need a leader with us! It was pretty fun from stubborn horses, to jumping horses (Mom's horse) to being lead through branches. Right after we all cleaned up, packed up, and headed back to the city. We had to go shopping for clothes for Uncle Claxton's funeral. We weren't planning on needing anything when we left for vacation. Katelin and Mom introduced me to a new fun clothing store called Vanity. Not a great name, but they have cute clothes for a good price.

Thursday, 24th
We got up early to drive up to Still Water for Great Uncle Claxton's funeral. It was nice to see so much family that we weren't planning on, it was just too bad it had to be under these circumstances.

Friday, 25th
I woke up at 6:30! I was wanted to go jogging and decided I'd just go when I got up, but I didn't count on waking up this early! I tried to do a 3 mile jog and ended up almost doing 4 on accident. It was rough though being so hot outside. I ended up walking about half of it. The rest of the day was spent in the car heading down to my parent's house in Texas. And to top the day off we at BBQ! Mmmmm I loved my bbq ribs!

Saturday, 26th
I woke up early again this morning, this time at 6am when I was planning on waking at 7. I'm glad I got up earlier though to beat the sun up. I did a quick 2 mile jog before I got too hot. This Texas weather is nice to be warm, but you can't stay in it too long. Mom, Katelin and I went to the mall to shop some. We went to many stores and only Katelin came away with one shirt. God was watching my budget! Then Tim's old roommate Tim and his wife Carrie came up to hang out. We went to the church and played ping-pong, frisbee, and the wii. Then we had a great steak dinner cooked by my parents. Now I'm writing this while Tim is at the movies with 2 of the guys on my Dad's church staff watching the new Batman movie.

Posted in: family, oklahoma, roman nose, texas, vacation, vanity on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at at 7:28 PM 1 comments    

If you normally just read my blog through email I encourage you to go to my website and check it out. Tim helped me last night to pick a different template and make my blog more unique to me. I really like it, but I picked a bad time to change it. I was in the middle of making Tim's anniversary gift, and took a break to check my email, and I don't know what spurred me to want to change it, but I did. I've wanted a new look for a little bit now, but I should have waited.

I went to bed way too late, but God graciously woke me up early, at 6:20. I ate some breakfast, checked email, am writing this, then I'll go put some time into Tim's anniversary gift before I go jogging at 7. Yesterday was tough getting out to jog. I'm hoping today will be a little easier, but I'm still tired.

I'd like to have Tim's anniversary gift finished by tonight at 10. Please pray that I'll stay focused and get it finished. I have a feeling I might have to take another 2 hr. nap today while Isabelle sleeps too. She is the easiest baby to watch!

Our Belize mission trip is officially over. We gave our report at all three services Sunday. Then after church I signed up to help with VBS, which started yesterday. I'm keeping myself busy, which I probably shouldn't have done with making something elaborate in a small amount of time. Oh well.

We leave on Friday for Texas. I am so excited to see my family, and actually feel some summer weather. Our anniversary happens while we're down there, so I need to finish the gift before we leave. Yikes!

Posted in: anniversary gift, blog on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at at 4:38 AM 3 comments    

Tim has set up 2 nights this summer for parents to come over for dinner and get to know Tim, myself, and other parents. Tonight was our first one, and it was great! We had 8 people show up, with us made 10. Everyone brought part of the dinner, and we sat around sharing about how to better serve the youth, helping them in their spiritual walk. I really don't like to talk in large groups, and with 10 of us it was a little hard, but I kept feeling God pushing me to share a couple things, so I did. I had seen and knew who each parent was, but it was nice to have time to talk with them and get to know them better. We've been here for 18 months, and we still have a lot of people to get to know.

So, my last blog was about healthy stuff, and I've been doing pretty good, until today. Kelsey (the Mom and friend I am baby sitting for) bought some M&M ice cream treats for Tim and I. Tim wont eat them 'cause they're colored, so there's a whole box for me. Yikes! Luckily we have lots of college students (about 50 I'm hearing...) coming over, so I'm sure I can get someone to eat them. But, I also made the cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster, and we have a lot left over to give away tomorrow. I ate 1 and half of another, went back for seconds on the lasagna, and ate until I was really full. I'm glad our Pastor was here to ask me if I had gone jogging today 'cause I hardly thought of it today, and pretty much figured it was too late to jog. But once everyone was gone, and it was a little after 9 with a tiny bit of light left, I headed out.

I am so grateful for that accountability. For some reason when I put my ipod on and started stretching I got quite a bit of energy. I think I probably did my first mile in about 10 minutes, but I didn't want myself to slack off after that so I forced myself not to look at my watch. It was so tempting the whole time to look 'cause I kept up my pace during my second mile and even sped up going up the hills. On my 3rd mile I slowed down a little, but still kept faster than my usual. When I finished I was so proud 'cause I did the 3.08 miles in 33:58!

I usually average around 36 minutes and however many seconds. This was a major improvement. Especially while still digesting food. I kept on thanking God the whole time for giving me the energy to keep up my pace. Especially when I got inside the house and there was no more sun light. Hopefully I wont be to burned out tomorrow so I can do another 3 miles jog. Hopefully at the same pace, but I'm not counting on it! :)

Posted in: exercise, jogging, ministry on Friday, July 11, 2008 at at 8:43 PM 1 comments    

Tim and I just got back from a quick 2 mile jog, and I just scarfed down some cauliflower. I've never eaten a vegetable so hastily, and I'm glad I had it around to eat instead of something else.

Once the snow melted up here (and even when it came back) I started jogging and wanting to kick off my winter pounds I've been storing. I was doing pretty good for about a month, even worked my way up to be able to jog 4 miles, which I was very proud of! But then before we went to Belize I got sick, and during the mission trip I didn't get much exercise, so I had about a month off from working out.

When we got back I was kinda bummed 'cause that was 3 weeks that I had lost with trying to get into shape. So I wanted to give me a kick start this time around and read something to give me more information on nutrition, so I got the book, The Biggest Loser. The show is amazing, so I looked at their website and was reading information, and instead of printing everything off I figured I might as well buy the book. I'm still reading through it, but the thing I've tried to implement already is eating a lot more fruits and veggies, and more veggies than fruits.

I figured fruits would be easy to eat, and veggies not too bad, but eating more veggies than fruits is something I mentally have to work on. While Tim and I were jogging our second mile and my stomach started to feel empty I started thinking of all the veggies we bought yesterday, and then was wanting some type of dip to go with it...luckily we didn't have any. So we got home and I went straight to the fridge and the phone, for the cauliflower and to ask my Mom how to cut up a head of the stuff. I was really impressed with how good the cauliflower tasted (especially since we don't have dip in the house). I hope it still tastes as good tomorrow when I eat it for a snack and not only after jogging 2 miles.

Posted in: cauliflower, health, nutrition, The Biggest Loser on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at at 7:01 PM 0 comments    

We've actually been back for a little while. God did some pretty amazing things while we were in Belize. We mainly did VBS, had a couple days of construction on the Christian camp in Hattieville, visited a nursing home, orphanage, and did outreaches in the market place on the main land and island.

God used me mainly as a behind the scenes person with administration and discipline. Not my favorite choice, but God knows what He is doing. It was great seeing the kids stepping up to something they weren't exactly comfortable with, but being open to what God wanted to do through them. The nursing home was a huge place for that. We couldn't even understand half of the people there, but God used us to paint their nails and just love on the women. Something they don't usually get... physical attention.

All the pictures are posted on our youth group's website if you want to check them out.

This was mine and Tim's first missions trip to go on as a married couple. That was pretty special, and I think God helped us out a lot trying to learn how to shift over to ministry as a married couple. Pretty exciting.

Tim and I are home for two weeks before we head south for vacation with my side of the family. I am trying to get back into my jogging routine after being off of it for 3 weeks because of Belize and getting sick before the trip. I jogged 3 miles yesterday and 2.5 with Tim today. Both days pretty much killed me. I'm completely sore, but hopefully I'll get use to it again.

Posted in: Belize, ministry, missions, youth on Saturday, July 05, 2008 at at 6:03 PM 1 comments