I have...time!

Wow. I can't believe I have time to post a REAL blog post!



Not only have I been experiencing the busyness of being engaged, but work has been crazy!  Did every. single. one. of you purchase One Perfect Life?  Because I believe every one on the planet bought it.  But, the orders for that book are finally receding and we can now breathe at work.  ;)

Anyway, I feel like a little random update is in order.  (Mainly in pictures for those of you who don't like to read much.  These are definitely not in any particular order.)

 

First off, it was kind of surreal to take a morning off of work to go with Kwacha to fetch our marriage license. What??!!

  Also, really weird to change my last name.  Weird and just a little bit sad.  But not. 

 Another new happening is that Kwacha and I are now going to a new fellowship group at church, Mainstream.  That means that I obviously left high school staff.  :(  One of my small group girls was so kind to bring a cake to my last Bible study.

 And I was able to go to the Shepherd's Conference one day to work at the GTY booth.  Always fun to see my sister on the job. 

 (Wow, I'm just realizing how out of order this post is.)  Below is a picture from the shower that Emily and Melissa Norton threw for me at her house.  These are most of the GTY girls that came, just missing Bridget!

One thing I have really been enjoying are my early morning coffee dates with Em on Tuesdays and Jenn on Wednesdays.  It's amazing how much you can have to catch up on with people that you live with!  I always learn a lot from both of them and I always leave encouraged.

(Jenn is not typically THIS bright.)

 This year was the first year I've ever had a Valentine.  ;)  We celebrated the day after and went to some friends house for a Valentine's Day dinner on the actual day.  By the end of the night I was slightly disappointed that Kwacha had not really done anything or really even said anything about the day.  (Lame of me since we were going to celebrate the next day!)  But that night when I went up to my room after he left, this is what I found. 

 In Febrary, we were able to drive up north and visit our friends, Anton and Marietjie Van Straaten!  Marietjie used to disciple me and it had been three years since I had seen her!  Hard to believe.  We had such a fun time with them!  (Kwacha's just a little dark and the rest of us are super white so it kind of threw off the white balance.) 

 And you can tell I'm getting married soon, because the girls at work hung a veil over my desk.  Or a mosquito net...depending on how you look at it...

Can't believe the wedding is 25 days away!

That time of year...

Resolutions?  Yes, no, maybe so?  Well when New Year's rolled around I felt that it was almost pointless to make resolutions since I find such difficulty in keeping them.  Plus the whole idea just sometimes seems a little....cheesy to me.  What has happened to me and the idea of cheesiness??  In the last couple years I have wanted as little to do with cheesiness as possible.  But I think I've gone to the other extreme. 

This last weekend we had high school winter camp.  The topic was the glory of God.  To bring God glory should be my utlimate goal and resolution, which I cannot do apart from Jesus and the Holy Spirit working in me. 
1 Corinthians 10:31 "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 
Romans 11:33-36 "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!  'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?' 'Or who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?' For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be glory forever.  Amen."

Any resolutions I make this year should stem from this.  And it has become more and more clear to me in the last two weeks that I HAVE to make goals and plans in order to grow and truly bring God glory with my life.  If I don't plan anything it's not going to happen.  A friend asked me recently, "What are your plans for this year?"  And I didn't have much of an answer.  Lame!  The very next day I was reading a book that my wonderful boss gave me and the author was talking about the importance of setting goals to grow. 

So, at camp I decided that it might be a good idea to break up my day/areas in which I am involved and see in what ways I need to grow.  That may be a way to figure out some goals and plans to make. 
For me that looks like:
God
Family/Home
Work
Church/High School Group/Evangelism
Friends
Entertainment
Food
Sleep/Rest
Finances

Right off the top of my head I know that in my relationship with God I want to wake up at 5 every morning and spend time with Him in His Word and in prayer.  I want to read through the Bible this year, but faster than one year.  Maybe a few months or more.  I want to spend the majority of my time in the car praying to Him or singing to Him. 
With Family/Home I want to help my mom around the house more.  Be more involved with cleaning and cooking, etc. 
At Work I want to be focused on paying attention to what I am doing.  I want to make sure that I don't draw attention to myself at lunch by trying to be funny or whatever.  I want to take interest in other people.  I also want to take a couple of lunches every week to read. 
With Church/High School/Evangelism I want to faithfully pray for those on staff and the girls in my small group.  I want to choose a day or two in the week where I specifically plan to pray for them.  Same goes with missionaries and people I want to tell about Jesus.  To be realistic, I'd like to start off with telling someone the gospel at least once a month.  I know it should be more, but I want to start off with more than last year. 
With Friends I want to be more purposeful in our conversations.  To ask more faithfully how I can pray for them and then to actually do that! 
With Entertainment I want to be much more discerning in what I watch.  I want to ask myself, "Is what I'm watching glorifying to God?"  If I can't find any way in which it is, I shouldn't be watching it! 
With Food I need to come up with a plan for eating healthy and stick with it.  With the disease I have this is necessary and yet I forget that it is.  I would like to have self control in this area.  I'd also like to spend less in eating out.  In order to do this I really need to come up with how much I should spend a month and stick with it. 
With Sleep and Rest it's pretty simple.  I need to go to bed earlier!  I would like 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night.  If I get up at 5 that means I need to go to bed between 10 and 11.  That means I need to start going upstairs between 9:30 and 10 and that means getting off of FB by 10 for sure! 
And finally with Finances I need to make a budget and stick with that.

Well, again, those are plans that come to mind immediately.  I know that I could come up with more and probably other categories.  But this is a place to start.  It's also probably more than you wanted to know, but I am thankful to have a spot where I have recorded this and now you all can keep me accountable! 

So, what have you decided to do this year as far as resolutions?  What has helped you in the past?  I want to know readers!  Now is the time for you to finally comment!  har har...

The Wauhop's

Can I just say how much I love this family? I had the privilege of working with Ashley at GTY for just over a year before she left to have baby Maggie! In all honesty one of the cutest little babies I have ever met. Both Robert and Ashley are funny, sweet, down to earth and fun to hang out with! I loved taking these pictures and I am so happy for them. And I'm happy that little Maggie has such wonderful parents. ;)

While I love blogspot, the format on my blog isn't great for picture showing, so I started a new one just for photogpraphy. Not much yet, but here's the link: http://amandataylorphotography.wordpress.com/

I don't think I've ever heard a friend praise her husband as much as Ashley praises Robert. She told me that they have never gotten in a fight. Their love for each other is sweet to see!

The other thing that Ashley talked most about at GTY was how much she couldn't wait to be a mom someday. It was fun to see the whole processs!

I was able to get a few of Maggie's face. ;)

She looks a lot like her beautiful mama!

Looking at her daddy.

She may have gotten a bit chilly at the end. Little tears. :(

These two aren't afraid of PDA.

I know. I took a lot.

Look at those eyes!

Happy family!

Father's Day

(Watching for the cuckoo to come out of the clock at my Grandma's house in MI.)

This is a day late, but I don't want to miss an opportunity to write about my Dad. Here are some random memories I have of him:

In Kindergarten, my Dad drove me to school on his way to work and if the freeway was packed, we would get off at Paxton and drive through the neighborhood. No matter what season, there were tons of houses that left their Christmas lights on all year. So as we'd drive down the streets we'd take turns saying, "There's one! There's one!"

When I was in High School, Dad drove me to and from church on Wednesday nights. On the way home we would listen to Perry Mason mysteries on the radio and we'd bet each other a penny on the exact time we would make it home. (For some reason we never paid up.)

Also in High School, somehow my friend Kristin convinced me to keep the J.V. football stats with her. (Even though I didn't know anything about football. Which is probably why I had football players yelling at me for not attributing the correct plays to them.) Anyway, Dad drove us to and from the games and explained all the plays on the way home. (He kinda drove me to a lot of different places. Poor guy.)

This one time Em and I were driving with Dad somewhere and this song came on the radio. For some reason, Dad started "rapping". Or trying to. It was sooo funny. Em and I were cracking up and so Dad started cracking up. He was laughing so hard I thought we were going to get in an accident!

This one day Em and I were watching the Disney channel or something and this Donald Duck "music video" came on. It was an old cartoon of Donald working in a wood shop. The tune was really catchy and so Dad, Em and me started whistling it. Ever so often we would remember that video and one of us would try to remember the tune. Someone always wound up getting it and I still remember it to this day.

About a month or so before he entered the hospital, the two of us went on a drive out to Ventura to meet with a graphic designer that does work for Grace to You. I (still am) interested in graphic design and so Dad wanted me to be able to talk with someone who knew the ins and outs of the profession. It was a beautiful day and we got Starbucks afterwords. I asked my Dad to tell me a story about himself that I had never heard. He told me about how when he was younger he and his friends decided to go on a "hike" in Michigan. They were just old enough to go on a long hike by themselves. Nothing really eventful happened to them, but he said it was just to much fun and they went far and were gone most of the day. He just seemed so happy remembering it.

There are so many other sweet memories I have with my Dad. I miss him sooo much! I am so thankful to God for giving me such a great Dad. And I am so thankful that I have a heavenly Father who provides and protects.