the stork is everywhere lately!

i've been thinking about one of my dearest friends a lot lately. she lives far away, so i haven't gotten to see her in a long time, but i think about her a lot. the other day i had a feeling that i needed to call her because she might be pregnant. i thought, how silly, then i got distracted, so i never called her. well, yesterday, she called me and guess what she had to tell me... she's pregnant! i'm so excited for her. she's going to be such a great mom. she said she goes from being excited and happy to freaking out and scared a lot. gosh i miss her. i wish i could be there with her as she goes through all the exciting and not so exciting changes. i think i might have to save up so i can go visit when she has the baby. i can't wait!

good times

the past couple weekends have been a lot of fun for me. the weekend before last, i went to siloam to see a few of my favorite friends. we had a great dinner at Marketplace... yum! then, we went bowling in our fancy/goofy outfits. it's so refreshing to spend time with old friends. the next day we went shopping and i got to go to the dogwood festival and ran into even more fun people. then i got to go back again this past weekend for a friend's birthday. i also got to have lunch with a new friend here in fort smith. and sunday night, JJ took me to red lobster and treated me like the most beautiful princess in the world. then last night, we had only my favorite kids in the nursery and it was a blast. today, i'm going to another get together with some fun people i don't really know very well, but hope to. friends are so important to sanity. i'm so glad i have such great ones.

2 out of 3's not bad

the weekend was tons of fun. the preaching was inspiring. the fellowship with the kids and other sponsors was encouraging. the music... not so much. the preacher spoke out of Hebrews 4:12-

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

"living" comes from the word zoe which means life. "active" comes from the word energes which means energy. so, the Word of God is our life and energy. when we neglect it, its like starving yourself. it's good to have reminders occassionally, because i've been forgetting to eat and have been starving.

the kids were so much fun and the other sponsors were too. there were two other women sponsors. they were both moms of a couple of the teens. one of them thought it would be fun for us to ambush the guys with water guns when they got back from basketball. she was so right! we asked the guy at the front desk to call our room when the guys came in so we could be ready... and he DID! how awesome is that!? we soaked them as they came out of the elevator while trying to contain all our giggles and squeals so we wouldn't disturb the people in the room with the "do not disturb" door hanger. all the guys came up except jj and the youth pastor, tim. aparently, jj hurt his leg and so they dropped the guys off and went to walgreens for bandage to wrap it with. so, i called to make sure he was okay... and to find out when they would be back (so we could be ready for them). i'm such a good wife. i had the feeling that they knew what i was up to, so we staked out, not just the elevators, but the stairs too. however we got distracted and all ended up back at the elevator. when we heard it ding, we all got very excited, but i saw tim walk out of the stairwell just in time to tell the girls not to shoot the person that was about to come out of the elevator, who happened to be the guy from the front desk. tim told the guy what we were up to and asked him to tell us that we were disturbing other guests and that if we didn't stop we would be kicked out. we're just a nice little group of pranksters. it's all in love. jj was okay, even though he has a bit of a limp still. a banana helped the cramping a little. we had a blast.

well, the music wasn't really that wonderful. they had a group from nw arkansas lead it. they were youth themselves. some of their issues will work themselves out with maturity, but it was really hard to keep a straight face sometimes. the guitars and drums were fairly good, but the vocals were just... well, the leader guy was probably 15 or so. he had a decent voice and fairly good pitch with the occassional typical teenage boy squeak. but he sang with this awful, obviously fake british accent. i mean, come on kid! you're from rogers. you're not fooling anyone. and then there was the girl. she was 16 and sang about as well as jj. for those of you who don't know what that is like, ask the howling dogs. i did okay about not wincing too much, until tim lost it and laughed a little. that made me laugh. which made jj laugh (he didn't understand what we were laughing about since he was blessed this weekend with tone deafness, but he thought it was funny that we were laughing), which made another guy laugh. fortunately, it was more like giggles all at different times, so we weren't caught.

anyway, we had a great time. i was encouraged and inspired and got to know people. thank you God for bringing me closer to you once more.