Day trip adventures, new friendships being built, fun date nights that include photo booths (one of my favorite things to do), nights with friends laughing and goofing off, and special moments with my handsome (like the one captured above).
::insert loud party favor noise makers and confetti::
Oh me oh my! 2012 is over and 2013 is just beginning.
This new year has already been off to a wonderful start.
The first week of the New Year consisted of Bryce and I enjoying our last few days off before we got back to our normal routine of working/ministry/small group/fuse group/events/etc.
I wanted to recap our last couple of days off and they go a little something like this:
- We rang in the New Year down on the Strip. There were SO many people, and we walked around people watching, wishing people a Happy New Year, and of course watching the beautiful firework show that popped off at midnight. We screamed and hollered with every one else, and sealed the New Year with a kiss.
::blush::
It was such a fun night and one of the best New Years I have experienced in my adult life, mainly because I got to spend it with him and it was just very chill and free spirited in a way because we just walked around and didn't have dead set plans that we had to stick by.
- Another adventure we went on to start the New Year off right was we finally went tothe Hoover Dam.
Now I have lived in Las Vegas ALL my life, all 24 years...and I have never seen the Hoover Dam before...ever!
So Bryce and I took our last day off and went and played tourists for the afternoon.
It was quite fun. I brought my camera and Bryce was the photographer for the day. He has such a good eye for landscape photography and structural things that I don't feel like I really have the passion for, or the eye for. So it was really fun to sit back as we walked around and watch him photograph everything. We would be walking and he would stop and go to take a picture and while he was doing that I would try and figure out what exactly he was seeing and how he was lining up his shot. Some times I would see the angle he was going from and the image would click and make sense to me before he would show me what he captured, and other times I wouldn't be able to see what he was seeing until he showed me the image.
It was just a very fun experience to be able to teach him about lighting and how to know when he needs to change different settings on the camera. He is definitely a natural.
After we ventured around the Hoover Dam for 3 hours we drove back to town, had a dinner date at Cafe Rio and then headed back to my house to go through his photographs that he took earlier and then we watched FernGully and Rock-A-Doodle.
(We are little kids at heart.)
It was the perfect ending to a wonderful, much needed few weeks off.
Now we are back at it, and oh is it going to be busy.
Thankfully I am refreshed and excited for all that we have coming up these next few months.
I'm excited to see what God has in store for each of us, our team, and for myself.
I couldn't be more blessed with a better team to be a part of, and I am thankful to be a part of such an awesome church that is doing BIG things by changing people's lives with the word of God and His radical grace.
I am looking forward to seeing how God moves in my Fuse Group girls lives and our relationships. I'm excited to continue to see them grow with their relationship with God,their families, and their friends. I am thrilled to be able to pour into them and connect with them.
I'm so thankful and blessed for the man that God has blessed me with in my life.
I couldn't be more lucky than I am right now with the man that Bryce is and for the way he treats me and cares for me. I'm excited to see what challenging and fun adventures this year has for us and our relationship.
I am so glad that we both know to keep God first and to honor Him with our relationship.
It's a blessing to have a man that is on the same page with me, and that wants to honor God with everything that he does as well as what we do as a couple.
Oh I am beyond lucky and thankful for him.
<3
2013 is going to be a crazybusyfunfilledchallengingfullofgrowthadventurefilledhappyfantasticstretchingimsurefrustratingattimesgreat year!
**This post might be a little mushy-gushy or what ever you want to call it.
But I don't mind, so enjoy the tiny glimpse I am sharing about my love life.
Day 8:
I am thankful for my sweet handsome boyfriend and best friend. I could not have been blessed with a more wonderful, genuine, kind, down to earth man in my life.
Each day I grow more and more thankful for this sweet man.
God's timing with bringing him into my life couldn't have been more perfect and today I get to celebrate 6 months with this handsome man.
He has brought so much joy into my life, and he constantly inspires me to want to be a better person.
His love and passion for God is something I have always wished for in a man, and I am so thankful to finally have found a man with that quality.
I love that he is constantly teaching me new things.
Hopefully one day I will be able to fully understand him when he speaks Spanish to me, but I would definitely say so far I do pretty well.
I am thankful for how laid back and easy going he is.
He helps me slow down in life and pick and choose what battles are really worth battling.
We may disagree on politics at times, but thankfully instead of arguing with one another we simply communicate our beliefs and knowledge about topics and we see each others sides.
I am also very thankful for his family.
He has been blessed with such a fun and unique family.
They are such welcoming and genuine people.
Each and every one of them has a love for God and they all volunteer at our church.
It always puts a smile on my face seeing his entire family every weekend giving back so much to our church and they always do it with a smile on their face.
I am also thankful for the relationships and bonds I am developing with them, especially his mom and littlest sister Jess.
Recently this past weekend Bryce and I were a part of a prank that we played on our Junior High Pastor where Bryce "proposed" to me on stage and in return my part of the prank was to say no and run off stage.
We tricked all of the junior high students but especially our pastor.
Later that weekend Bryce's mom had walked up to me and told me how she saw the video of the prank and she thought it was hilarious.
She then looked at me and said, "We almost had ya in the family."
In which I replied, "Almost." ha ha
I just adore that entire family.
God has blessed me in so many ways this past year, but he has especially blessed me with such a wonderful man and relationship.
So short story long, I am blessed and beyond thankful for my sweet and handsome boyfriend that God placed into my life.
One of the very few women I've looked up to my entire life.
She has always been there for me through the ups and downs through out my life, and I can not begin to thank her enough for all she has brought into my life.
She was there for me more than ever in the lowest part of my life last year.
She held me when I cried, she reassured me that God had a plan for my life even though I couldn't see it at the time.
She promised that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
She has helped me grow so much through out the years and I am so thankful for that.
I am thankful for the unique bond that we have as sisters.
I will never forget our apartment days and the interesting neighbors we had.
Freestyle Fridays
Karaoke nights
Watching the strangest infomercials on Saturday mornings while listening to our neighbors scream at one another.
Thinking our apartment was on fire, so we grabbed our laptops and ran outside to the parking lot...only to realize we were the only ones outside and the smoke was coming from the neighbor below who was barbecuing illegally.
Our many trips to Niketown and Fat Tuesdays.
Mama and Papa cooking nights.
Our first couple of nights in the apartment cooking and being resourceful with the only cooking utensils we had...which were scissors and a fork.
So many good, fun memories with her.
I am so thankful God blessed me with her.
Day 6:
I am thankful for my oldest sister Gabby.
My Gabrielle.
My Big Sis.
My personal GPS.
My "I did dad, I did" sister
She is one of the most compassionate and selfless people I have ever known.
She loves fully and gives fully.
I have never met some one who is so giving to others and so thoughtful like her.
(Other than my Gram Cracker)
She has taught me how to have a child like spirit.
I look up to her in so many ways.
I try and be as thoughtful as she is towards people.
I am so thankful for all the times she has listened to me vent and been there to help guide me and pick me up when I tend to doubt myself.
I am thankful for her words of encouragement.
She has such a sweet spirit and she truly deserves to be blessed with the best.
I treasure the times I have with her.
She is one of my absolute favorite road-trip partners.
I can not express enough how thankful I am that God has placed her in my life as my older sister. She has bestowed so much wisdom and love upon me, and she is always there for me.
With all of that being said, it is her birthday today!
She is the big 2-9!!
Happy 29th Birthday to my Gabrielle.
I love you so incredibly much and I am so excited for you to move back to Vegas.
I am looking forward to our morning coffee dates and breakfast days again.
I have missed you so much.
I love you sissy!
Happy Birthday <3
I am incredibly blessed with the two sisters God has placed me with.
I couldn't have asked for better family than what God has blessed me with.
I am thankful for STRIVE and our FUSE students and leaders.
STRIVE was such a success, and we were able to give so much back to the Las Vegas community. 339junior high students and leaders served all across the Las Vegas Valley. From painting curbs sorting books pulling weeds/picking up garbage to cleaning entire class rooms from head to toe helping out at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission and the Ronald McDonald house and so much more. There wasn't anything we didn't do. How cool is that?!
I'm also super thankful for the wonderful team and staff I am blessed to be a part of at Central Christian Church.
All of the long, long hours that our team put in with:
phone calls
e-mails
texts
flyers
excel sheets
meetings
late nights
site visits
bumps in the road
and
more meetings it ALL paid off.
I can not begin to describe the joy that it brings me to see the images pouring in from our STRIVE work day and seeing all the students and leaders working so hard, and doing it with such a HUGE smile across their face.
It is truly inspiring to see such selfless acts of service.
I am so so so proud to be a part of such a wonderful team and ministry.
<3
Day 4:
I am thankful for maple bars and red bull editions the day after STRIVE.
I usually hop on Facebook, check my e-mail, check pretty much ALL my social media accounts, and then once I am over all of that I open up a new blog post and stare at the blank screen for how ever long until words come to me.
I don't like to just write about gibberish.
I don't like to vlog about gibberish either.
I want my words and my posts to have substance.
I'm not the best blogger.
I don't post on a consistent basis, but I also don't get as much alone and down time as I probably should.
I constantly feel the need to go, go, go and to constantly be busy doing or working on something.
But sometimes you need to just stop, and have some time for yourself.
Time where you don't have any where to be at any specific time.
Time where you don't have any thing specific to get done.
Time to just simply sit back and reflect on your life.
Time to simply spend with God.
I think time with God is a must or at least should be a must for people.
I know when it comes to me it is a definite must.
Making sure I take time to spend with God is so incredibly important in my life because it keeps my life balanced regardless of how hectic my life gets.
So as long as I get in my alone time with God I feel balanced in the end.
Of course there are times where I just simply feel so overwhelmed with all I have going on and I will have little freak outs or a roller coaster of emotions but when it gets to that place that is when I know that I need to seriously take a minute, take a deep breath and breathe and simply schedule in some "quiet time."
That is what I like to call my God time.
I would be lying if I said that I have been regularly having my quiet time, because in reality I haven't lately.
I've been so wrapped up in work, church, and a social life that I haven't been home unless it is to sleep for maybe 4 or 5 hours.
Usually when I am home I will go up to my room and have my quiet time where I shut my door and shut out all of my distractions so that I can focus on God and I.
Last night was the first time in a few weeks that I have been home before 10pm and where I haven't had anything going on.
Now at first I was bummed out, I left church at around 830pm and just felt this need to try and find something to do but instead I shut my mind up and my restlessness up and decided to go home and truly just relax for the rest of the night.
At first when I got home I went up to my room and just felt super bored and a bit down, and then I started to think about the fact that there are plenty of times when I am at work that I am wishing I could simply just sit in my bed and relax and not have anything to specifically do for a few hours.
So why now am I complaining when I am getting exactly what I have been hoping for?
So are you curious as to what I did last night.
Here let me tell you.
I took a nice shower and I got in bed and simply sat there and relaxed.
I sat back and thought about how much God has been working in my life and about how a year ago I was in such a different place.
I never would have imagined a year ago that I would be where I am today with my faith.
I never would have imagined that I would be so involved with church like I am.
That I would be surrounded by such an awesome group of individuals who all love and want to serve God.
I took time last night to simply thank God for blessing me with all the wonderful opportunities that he has bestowed upon me.
For the people who have become my best friends and who constantly are challenging me and inspiring to grow deeper in my faith.
For blessing me with the wonderful supportive family that I have.
I also had the time to talk on the phone with a good friend for a while and then I spent some time with my brother.
Then I called it a night and decided to go to sleep since I had to be up at 5:30am this morning so that I could get my brother to church by 7am.
So now since I have been sitting here at church since 7am waiting to go to the 9am service, I decided it would be the perfect time to sit back, reflect and spend some quiet time blogging.
I'm not gonna lie though...when I first got to church at 7 all I could think was, "What am I going to do with my time for 2 hours until service?" But it has definitely been a much needed 2 hours of just me and my yummy cup of coffee, sitting alone with my lap top in hand letting my words flow from my finger tips.
