go away party

well, they had a "go away" party for us at NEXT today (named by matt beaver, of course). technically it's jason's last week, since i'll still be here through the fall. but nonetheless, it was a party and it was for us!

they took us all to jinbeh. one of jason and i's most favorite places to go (when we have saved up for it!). we like to call it jennjay's!

anyhoo, no pics to show as i forgot to even take my camera out! i know, sinful!

right now? kids are napping (glorious) and we have a showing today from 5:30-6:30pm. third time's a charm, right? meaning, this is our third showing.....hey, it only takes one.

pray.

in view of a call

we went down to our future hometown of waxahachie on saturday.

we arrived to the hotel and when we opened the door to the hotel room, it was as if the music was playing in the background and i felt like a red carpet was being rolled out (mainly because it's my favorite color) to the end of the table where a gift basket FULL of goodies was waiting for us. and you know i love me some gift baskets full of goodies! it was from the avenue church.

crayons. t-shirts. fruit snacks. crackers. cookies. toys for the kids. coloring books. markers. and a sweet sweet card from all the staff at the avenue saying welcome.

well, it made us feel VERY welcome. i think i want to join that church for sure now...you had me at hello!

so that night, after we rolled the red carpet back up, we met at the church for dinner with all of the small group leaders as well as the deacons and their wives. the place was packed! jason shared our heart with them and why we feel god has called us to the avenue. it was great. i personally felt right at home. the people were just lovely and so welcoming. we couldn't wait until the next morning.

jason was going "in view of a call", which pretty much means that the personnel committee and staff has met with you and feel you are the man god wants for your church and they pick a weekend for you to go before the entire church for them to officially vote you into the church.

there are three services, so jason talked a little about his vision and heart again for a short time in each of the services. the kids and i showed up for the second and third services (well, they were in the children's area). again, we felt right at home and absolutely loved the worship AND the preaching (it was my first time to hear my future pastor preach....he's pretty darn good!).

i've said it before, but i'll say it again....i'm so proud of jason. i feel honored to be doing life with him. but i wanted to brag on him and say that he got a complete 100% unanimous vote (never has happened at the church before) from all three services. sooooooo, after we found that out, jason leaned over to me and whispered, "well.....ya wanna move to waxahachie?" ha! i guess so!

we are pumped.

we sold jason's truck yesterday. and bought a more economical one tonight. now we just need the house to sell.

thanks for your prayers. we'll keep you posted.

love!

sunday school, def leppard & tattoos

four sunday school couples = eight people total. and pretty sure we were the only sober people at the cheap trick, poison, def leppard concert friday night.

disclaimer: tattoos compliments of yours truly used with waterproof eyeliner and mascara. rock on!

So Many Things.....

...so little time.

there is so much going on in my world these days. half of you have already given up on me and my blog posts. and quite frankly, i was starting to give up on them myself.

but i will say that i've missed you, sweet blog page. you allow me to vent, to record, to wrap my life up as it happens in just a few sentences on a page. so i am faithfully going to start back. who needs pictures? i have words, lots of them. and besides, if it helps get out things that are swirling around in this head of mine and makes me feel better, than why not throw out a post here and there?

sooooooooo here's the breakdown of our lives in a nut shell. really bigger than a nut shell, so here goes:

we are moving.....AGAIN! there are a lot of things i hate about those three words - we. are. moving. but there are a lot of things i am extremely excited about too.

hate:
- leaving some of the dearest friends i've ever known in my life
- leaving the most incredible, amazing neighbors i've ever known in my life
- knowing that julia is leaving the day to day interaction with some of her friends, even though SHE doesn't fully grasp it
- leaving our sunday school class
- moving from my beautiful, very well laid out floor plan, now very neat and clean, staged home
- leaving the people in our church who we dearly love
- leaving NEXT and all of the incredible people we've worked with over the years, especially warren samuels
- leaving a close sam's club
- leaving a close sam moon
- leaving la hacienda ranch
- and pretty much anything about leaving

i don't like change, despise packing and i absolutely HATE unpacking.

excited:
- the thrill of moving to a new place
- a new church
- being close to jason's best friend and getting to know some of the other friends there
- moving into a rental to pay down debt
- meeting new people
- full time day care
- being closer to brad and shannon
- being closer to lashay and steve
- a simpler life
- in some sick way, actually having to PLAN to go to sam's club, sam moon and maybe i'll be skinnier if there isn't a "la ha" near us

where are we going? WAXAHACHIE, TX! jason accepted a position as the pastor of connections (small groups) and missions. he starts september 6th. he will commute back and forth to mckinney until we sell our house.

pray we sell our house quickly.

i will work with NEXT through the end of the year, probably. maybe just until november-ish. they are going to be moving to flower mound around then so i'll help train the next person and then stop working there.

i will find a new job in waxahachie.

we are excited about the move and absolutely know god's hand was in it 100%. doncha just love when you know god's in it 100%? i like following god's plan rather than our own. it's both scary AND exciting all at the same time.

mom will move with us. she's putting her house on the market at the beginning of the year.

sooooo, be on the outlook for more postings in the future.

tonight? we go to def leppard, cheap trick and poison with some peeps from our sunday school class (see i told you they were awesome!).