Just so you know......

TODAY IS APRIL 29.

It was the last day of classes.

The last day of chapel.

Forever.

(well at least until Brent decides to get his masters!!)

Happy Birthday, Jenn!

Today was my friend Jenn's birthday! Larry, her husband, is in Alaska in training, so Jenn and I spent the day together. We started out with lunch at PeiWei with a few other friends - YUM!! and then we went to a little town called Granbury. It's a cute little square with boutiques and shops and ice cream! :) We both got a few things. I got a great clock!! I love clocks! Jenn is a great friend!

Granbury...well part of it.....

We bought the most hilarious cards in one store!

We love ice cream!

This is my new clock!!

When the cat's away......

The mice re-arrange the living room!! haha!!

Well as most of you know Brent was out of town for the weekend. So when he's out of town, I like to do somethings that I might not do all in one day! On the menu for this weekend was cleaning, organizing and apparently re-arranging! Yesterday, I spent out and about getting some pictures printed, going to about 6 stores looking for good organizing stuff - which I finally found at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I also went to Danna's baby shower. So today after church and lunch I came in a thought about where to start - the house was a wreck - really you should have seen it!! So I start by making the bed. From there, I take all - and I mean ALL of our clothes in the closets and throw them on the bed or the couch to go through them and move something around in our room. But let me tell you moving Brent's suits is a feat within itself!!! So thus begins the mass cleaning and re-arranging epsiode at my house. I have just moved the bookshelves and taking the books off the shelves and moving the bookshelves and putting the books back on....well.....let's just say that THAT is why I am now taking a break. The picture above is the pile of books that I put on the floor to move the shelves!!

Now can you see why I do this when Brent is gone. He would have - pardon me for going back to 7th grade - had a COW (LOL) at all his books in the floor! Plus spending Sunday afternoon organizing and re-arranging is not exactly his cup o' tea. I thought I would just tell him that sometimes things have to get messier before the get better. Then I thought that kind of applied to my spiritual life. It's been a little messy since we've moved out here - it kinda started a few months before moving though. But now, I think it's getting better.

Our connection class is going through the minor prophets on Sunday mornings and today was the book of Amos. Amos is about God letting Israel and all surrounding nations know that they will judged for their sins. But you see that Israel has something the other nations to do not. They have a covenant with God. He will not destroy them completely, in fact at the end of the book He restores them! God sometimes takes and tears us completely down in order to rebuild us stronger for Him. I'm so thankful that He is on our side and He has such mercy and grace on us. I sometimes think that we do not even know the extent to which that grace and mercy is bestowed to us. Praise be to God of second chances (and third, fourth, fifth, etc.)!

Gala 2008

This is at the Gala. The seminary hosts this every year at Bass Performance Hall in downtown. It's fun night. The seminary's Oratorio chorus and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra perform for about 2 hours together. It's great!
What a smashing couple!!
This is my friend, Steffi!
She lives in Germany. Brent being silly

This is my friend, April. Don't you love the blue nametags!
Rachel and Thomas! I love these two!!!!

Photo Shoot with Abby

Here are some pictures of our photo shoot with Abby! We went to downtown FW in the stockyards. If you want to see the finished product, visit http://www.abbycaldwellphotography.com/ . Click on Gallery and then choose Portraits. I think we have about 3 pictures in there. Also click on her Blog on that website there are a few more!Enjoy

The Prophecy of Tyre

Brent and I are in this mentoring thing with a couple through our connection class (sunday school class) at church. It's good. But we've only met twice, so we aren't very far along. We are doing this book called Mentoring 101. So far this week's sessions is about the Bible and it's accuracy. There is a section in the back we have to read called "Can we trust the Bible?" and it goes through 5 reasons the Bible can be trusted. Most of these I learned in college, so some of it was over view, but this is one prophecy they pointed out that I thought was cool. I like archeology and history.

"In addition to the messianic prophecies, the Bible also contains many prophecies regarding the fate of certain cities and nations. As an example of the astounding accuracy of these biblical prophecies, the following is an analysis of the predictions related to the city of Tyre. This city of ancient Phoenicia is now in southern Lebanon. It was once and enemy of Israel.

In Ezekiel 26 (KJV), written between 592 and 570 B.C., the Lord declares His anger towards Tyre for her extreme arrogance. He predicts her invasion by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and her ultimate destruction. Verses 7, 8, and 14, declare her fate:

"For thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon...and he will make siege walls against you... And I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more, for I, the Lord, have spoken,' declares the Lord God. "

The fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy is explained by the Encyclopedia Britanica. It states, 'After a 13-year siege (5850573 B.C.) by Nebuchadenezzar II, Tyre made terms and acknowledged Babylonian suzerainty (sovereignty).' It goes on to say: In his war on the Persians, Alexander III.....marched southward toward Egypt, calling upon the Phoenician cities to open their gates.....The citizens of Tyre refused to do so, and Alexander laid siege to the city. Poessing no fleet, he demolished old Tyre, on the mainland....

Philip Myers, a secular historian, summarizes the fate of Tyre:

'Alexander the Great.....reduced [Tyre] to ruins. She recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now bare as the top of a rock - a place where the fisherman that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry.'

The record of history regarding Tyre makes it obvious that each prophetic detail recorded in Ezekiel was fulfilled just as the Bible predicted."

Just so you know.......

Today is April 12.

Brent graduates in 26 days.

Chillin'

Our friends, Vernon and Amber, have a 3-year-old boy named Titus. Sometimes when you ask Titus what he is doing, he replies: "just chillin' " in his little 3-year-old voice. It's hilarious and adorable all that the same time!

Anyways, I'm "just chillin' " now. Everything is fixed in the water world of Hunter's Green apartment and I felt much better after letting you know all those things. I even called them and told them thank you for fixing the water.

Well I think I'm going to take a nice warm shower now.

Good-night.

Frustrated and Annoyed

This is how I feel right now. I know that there are maybe 2 or 3 people who read this blog, if that many, but just in case there are others, I thought that I would let you know.....just in case you get the random urge to move to Texas and live at Hunter's Green apartments......DON'T!
This apartment complex is owned by Equity Apartments. The people who run this company and this apartment complex are idiots! I'm sorry if I offended you and I know that this is not nice, disrespectful, rude, uncalled for, and not very Christ-like to call people that, but right now it's very hard to come up with a nice word to say about people who:

1. have been working on the water for weeks and just randomly decide to turn it OFF WITHOUT WARNING and then when it comes back on, not only is the water pressure low , the only thing that come out of faucuts is SCALDING HOT WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean...please....who licensed these water people?!?!

2. allow marjuana to be smoked in their apartments. I mean, maybe Hunter's Green is allowed
to have illegal drugs smoked on their property, so if you know anyone who is looking for a
place to smoke any kind of illegal drug and not be put in jail, please send them here. Yes, we
have called the police and the "courtesy" officer and the apartment people, but no one does
any about it! The "courtesy" officer can never come b/c he has to take care of his child. This
is understandable, but if you are going to be a "courtesy" officer don't not be avaiable, the
police come and smell what we smell, but they just say that we need to stay on top of the
"courtesy" officer and the apartment people. Apparently smell is not probable cause anymore!
The apartment complex say that they cannot do anything about it!

3. also if you would like to get a new car, just bring it to Hunter's Green and without a doubt, it
will be stolen and MAYBE the insurance company will pay for you to get a new one. No, our
car was not stolen, but there have been 3 on our side of the complex in about 1 year. Now I
don't know about you, but if the same thing keeps happening on the same side of the complex
I think i would look into my tennents, but no, nothing was done. At least that I know about.

4. if you have a maintance request, be prepared to wait....a long time..... Get this, we call to get
air filter change and low and behold there is not one in the air duct!! I'm not kidding, the last
they "changed" it (which by the way was in JULY) they forgot to put a NEW one in!! Genuis!!!

So I think you get the picture. We would love to move out, but not only would we have to pay a riduclous amount of money to these people, our lease is up in July and we don't exactly know where we will be and to rent another apartment month-to-month or even just sign a 4 month lease is riduclous! So we are almost stuck. Plus we can't move further away, b/c the traffic is ridicous that we would have to leave at 7:00 in the morning just to make it to work on time!!!!

So here's the deal. don't move to Hunter's Green apartments and don't live in anything owned by Equity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now i know that America is extremely blessed in the fact that we actually have running water and all the amenities that come with that running water (dishwasher, clothes washer), we also do have nice policeman who protect us and we have breatheable air and we actually have a car and that other people in this country do not have the same blessings and other countries don't have the same blessings. But right now I'm frustrated and annoyed and fed up with apartment living!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps this is what Jesus was talking about when He said, "in all things give thanks."

Have a nice day!!!!

Centennial

Well this past Friday Southwestern celebrated it's 100th birthday! What a week! Our office is in charge of events and we were hoppin'! Thursday, we had 2 receptions, a women's coffee/tea, and an awards luncheon and then Friday was the centennial celebration all day!! We got to wear these "adorable" yellow t-shirts...but it was really a good thing b/c we could all find each other easily in the crowd! I think the Lord put our office together perfectly! We are a team, friends, and family. It's so great to work with these guys and gals!