6 Years

Yesterday Jaye and I celebrated 6 years of marriage! I am so grateful to be married to my best friend and I am so blessed to share my life with him. Jaye works hard to provide for our family and he puts us first over work, friends, etc. Hope and I are so lucky to be his "girls". The past 6 years have been full of adventure, laughter, and shared memories! Life just keeps getting better! Originally we planned to go to Vegas for a few days to celebrate our anniversary but Jaye couldn't get time off b/c of his new job. My Mom offered to take Hope overnight so we had 28 hours to celebrate and adventure together! We played it by ear and made it up as we went and ended up having so much fun together!!!

 Saturday night we dropped Hope off and headed out for dinner at The Melting Pot. It is one of our favorite treats! My Mom insisted on taking pictures since we were "dressed up"...the one above was taken by my Mom and the one below, by Hope!

 Our dinner was amazing as always but the best part was dessert! We had the Snickers fondue and it was incredible!!! SOOOO yummy!

 Sunday morning we slept in, watched church online and then went for a 3 mile walk together! It was a beautiful day and it was so fun to walk hand-in-hand with Jaye! Jaye decided he wants to try the Couch to 5k program that I did and I am sooo excited for him to get active! I have big dreams of us doing raced together someday!

 After our walk we got cleaned up and ready for our adventure! Last year we had gotten pedicures together and decided it should be a yearly tradition. So, after lunch @ In N Out, we found a nail place and enjoyed sitting side-by-side and relaxing!

 After pedicures we headed out to wine country. I had found a great deal on a wine-tasting so we did that and then took some fun pictures on the grounds of the winery! Our hands-down favorite wine is Keyways Moscato so we were more than happy to bring a bottle home for later! Yum!

 Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!

After our adventures in wine-tasting we grabbed dinner at "Sushi Love Boat"....it was amazing !! Thanks to Yelp we found all shorts of fun places that we'd highly recommend!

aye found a cigar lounge and wanted to check it out.  Once a year or so Jaye likes to enjoy a cigar so this was a fun treat for him to find a great shop and mark a few off of his list of ones to try. While we were there we remembered there was going to be a solar eclipse within 30 minutes...we found a tissue box in the back of the car and made our own little viewing box. It actually worked pretty good! We felt so silly standing in the middle of a random parking lot in Temecula, trying to view the eclipse. We made several new friends who were also trying to view the eclipse!

After our eclipse viewing we headed home and enjoyed some wine and cigars on the patio. It was so nice to be home alone, in a quiet house!!! Overall we had an amazing 28 hours together and it was so much fun! Amazing how refreshing and heart-satisfying quality time is! So thankful for the past 6 years we've gotten to walk together!! 

Gladiator Rock n Run

One of the things I am loving about my new hobby of running is the fun races that I get to run with some of my favorite people! I love that my brother and I can now "race" together and do these fun events side-by-side! Granted, he is WAY faster than I am and in WAY better shape than I, but he is gracious and kind and sticks by my slow side! Here are some pics from a mud/obstacle run we did together a few weeks back....
 

 

 Our "mud run" was definitely a lot of fun but a lot of work as well! I walked away with some pretty good cuts, scrapes and bruises from all those obstacles but it was worth it! We had fun together and I wouldn't trade memories like that for anything!

May 19

I woke up early this morning to get ready for work and happened to check Facebook before crawling out of bed. (oh the joys of an iPhone) As I checked I came across a new album that my Uncle created, filled with pictures of my sweet cousin. As I looked at each picture, my eyes filled up with tears as I remembered Ryan and then also remembered how this day 15 years ago changed my life.

15 years ago today I was in Guatemala, on my 1^st mission trip. I was 16 and my parents were trusting enough to send me down there alone with the intent of meeting up with another group that would already be down there. That 1^st trip to Guatemala changed my life in many ways. It was on that trip that I learned to love like I had never loved before. It was there that I felt my heart come alive in ways that I had never before experienced. It was in that place that God called me to serve Him through missions. It was also in that place that my heart was broken and I learned to lean on others and to trust in His plan for my life.

Rewind about 2 weeks prior to this day 15 years ago…it was Mother’s Day. I remember being at church, in our youth room, when my Mom showed up. She had gotten a call saying that my cousin was in the hospital and that he was very sick. She was planning on leaving from church to go down to San Diego to see him. I asked her to go with and her and I left.

Walking into Ryan’s room I remember being overwhelmed with the number of tubes and machines and wires. It seemed as though he was attached to everything and there were medical devices everywhere. His skin had turned purple in some places and his body was so swollen. I had never seen anyone so sick in my entire life. I don’t really remember what came next or what else went on over the course of that day, but I remember that first impression.

Over the next week my Mom would spent a lot of time at that hospital while my Dad helped me get ready for my trip. I was supposed to leave for Guatemala in less than a week. I’m pretty sure we visited the hospital a few more times that week, but I can’t remember the details.

Before I knew it I was off to Guatemala, on the trip/experience of a lifetime. I was a part of a medical team that trip and I was so excited to assist in rural clinics and to observe surgeries and give injections in the capital city. 15 years ago today, after our morning was spent doing medical work, we were taken to a local hospital where there was a ward for small children and babies who needed medical care. There were probably 10 little ones in there and we were able to hold them and rock them and love on them. I think this may have been our 1^st day there. I held 2 sweet babies that day, Luis Miguel and Maria, both babies with a clef lip/palate and both were in that place to gain weight so they could be big enough for surgery. I think they were both around 6 months but were nowhere near the 10lbs that was required for surgery. Holding those sweet babies changed me, they captured my heart.

When we got back to where we were staying that afternoon I was told that my Dad had called and would call back later. In my heart I knew that something wasn’t right but I had no idea exactly why he called. That evening someone from the staff came and told me my Dad was on the phone and they stayed in the room with me while I took the call. They must have known what he was about to tell me. I will never forget sitting in that office, hearing that my sweet cousin had died, and then feeling the embrace of the sweetest 2 people. George and his wife Kathy just sat with me once I hung up the phone. They let me cry. They held me and hugged me and reassured me of God’s promises. I don’t know how long we were in there but I remembered that eventually I walked out of that office and joined my team in the meeting room. They were singing a song that I can still remember to this day. My heart was hurting and yet I knew that God was there. I learned that evening to let others near, to let them in, to allow them to share in my grief.

To be honest, I don’t really remember the rest of that trip other than that we kept getting to go back to hold those babies. I was given the choice of coming home early to attend the memorial/funeral or finishing out my trip. I chose to finish my trip. By the time I left to return home I had already promised the staff that I’d be back that summer for 4 weeks and I knew in my heart that someday I’d be back to stay.

So Cal Color Run

Little did we know, but this color would soon be EVERYWHERE!!!

Team "Color Outside the Lines"....clean and ready for our "run".

So grateful for these girls and the fun that we had at the Color Run! At each kilometer a different "color" was thrown on us...

By the end of the race we were COVERED with color and never looked better! We had so much fun laughing and running together and left that morning determined to sign up for another one!

 When I got home Hope wanted nothing to do with me. She said it was too messy for her. Jaye took some great detail shots of my color-coated self! The only thing that could've made this race better would be a MEDAL!!! I am hooked on this thing called running and love my collection of medals that serve as proof of each of these fun races I have run!