Happy Birthday Elliot!

Elliot has had lots of fun celebrating his birthday this year. Just wanted to share some pictures. The first party is at my mom's house with my parents and Eric's parents.


















The second party is at Chuck E. Cheese's with the mom's group gang.
Thanks to anyone and everyone to made this year special! We love you!

Will You Marry Me?

Four years ago today Eric made a surprise visit down to Mill Valley from Redding and sent me on a scavenger hunt all around my campus that ended at Pelican Bay - a restaurant on the water in Sausalito. I walked in and was told the man at the bar was waiting for me. I looked over and saw a hairy, older Asian man drinking beer... the waiter laughed and apologized when he realized Eric had been seated and I was NOT excited to see the guy chugging beer at the bar. Eric gave me the best hug ever, bought me crab cakes, and so sweetly and nervously got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. Less than five months later we were married in beautiful Kauai. Less than a year later we found out I was pregnant. Nine months later Elliot was born and added to the joy that is our family. And next week we'll get to celebrate two years of baby kisses. What a beautiful life.

ZUMBA!

So I went to the gym today for the second time. It was a mixed experience. After finding out that the Hartley's and the Bram's are members there, it was fun to watch Nate walk out as I walked in. Looks like that is the gym of choice for the Stirringites. Perhaps we can find workout buddies. One notch on the "yea" side.

I did ZUMBA for the first time today and loved it. I didn't wear enough deodorant though, so that didn't help me make any friends while I was there. Cei la vie. (Wow, spell check didn't pick up any of those words - did I really spell that right? Cool.) Zumba was so much fun and I loved seeing women in their 60's shake it next to women in their 20's. And boy was it a workout! Who knew!?!? One more notch for "yea" with a note to bring more deodorant.

I went to see how Eric was doing and while we were talking near the kid's area, we saw Elliot escape with another child after an older kid left w/o closing the door. The supervisor didn't notice immediately but when she did she corralled the Elliot and the other child back into the room. No go for Elliot though, he saw his freedom get taken away and I'm pretty sure saw his parents too. Letting our child escape gives one notch on the "boo" side of our tally sheet for the gym.

I think working out there could be great, but we are still rather undecided and only have about a week left on our free pass. I really want a place to workout that has childcare so I can go anytime I want and this place could be free if I help in the kid's area once a week for 3 hours. The tallies equal themselves out there: free membership but more time away from the house I'd like to keep clean and the family I'd like to be with.

So tell me what you think. Membership? Time in the kid's area? No exercising and only watching tv with cookies and milk? Wanna come exercise me and we can encourage one another?... ZUMBA is a lot of fun! Give me your feedback. Thanks.

I don't even know what to title this?

Okay, what is the deal. So last I blogged, my hair was turning gray. Now I'm getting smaller too! And unfortunately I don't mean my waist or pant size... Check this out: I wear 7 1/2 size shoes, can't get my foot in a 7 and my foot swims in an 8. But lately all my shoes haven't been fitting right and when I go to the store I seem to be bouncing back and forth in the size sections because I can't find a size that consistently fits. Well I finally got my foot measured to see what in the world was going on and I'm a solid size 7! I've been a 7 1/2 all my teen/adult life! Now suddenly I'm a 7? She even said I was just over a 6 1/2 if I wanted to look at the shoes there - WHAT THE HECK?

My head is changing colors and now my feet are shrinking. I don't even want to know what is next!

I don't want to dye!

Okay, so I just finished pulling 6 (that's right six! More than one hand of fingers) gray hairs from my head. Up until now I knew exactly where the 2 gray hairs were on my head. And I know there are more than 6 today b/c I saw them, but I just decided it was better to have a gray hair than no hair.

I remember being little and looking at my grandmother and thinking her gray hair was beautiful! I remember telling her that I couldn't wait to have gray hair like her's because it was so pretty and shiny. Yeah... I can wait now. I still think gray hair is beautiful, but I don't think it's beautiful on ME! Come on! I'm 28! Can't I at least get to 30? Or 40 even?! I suppose I have to either deal with it or start dishing out the coin for hair dye. I don't want to do either. Humpht!

Okay, there is my pity party post. I'm off to mope in a dark room with no mirrors or tweezers.

The Frey "You Found Me" Discussion Blog

A friend of mine in CO is having a discussion group at his weekly Tribe of Jesus meeting about the Frey song listed above and asked for those far away to give their input to help with the discussion. I thought it was interesting and wanted to see what you all thought as well. Here is a copy of what I emailed my friend with some links to videos we discussed. Please post your responses to the lyrics, videos, or my thoughts. Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obhdTlImFBo
I couldn't figure out how to email ToJ so I'm emailing you. I first searched for the song and the video for Lost came up. Having never watched Lost, I hated the video and was confused by the song. Everyone else seemed to love it. Here's the link to that: http://www.musicloversgroup.com/the-fray-you-found-me-video-and-lyrics/

Next I read the words below the video and it seemed to be a fairly hopeless song. I thought it was interesting how the main character is upset that God didn't find him. I've always thought of my journey with God as me chasing after him, and following him... so to think of someone being upset that God didn't follow them was interesting - eye opening. I thought that the girl he talked about was placed in God's role in his life and that is why he was so hopeless... to believe that she was the only one to know him and really be everything for him leaves him "lost and insecure" when she is gone. From a Xn perspective, it was nice to think that my identity was placed in something or I should say someone bigger. That thought right there made me want to evangelize (if you will) the neighborhood: "There is something bigger, permanent, all-encompassing, and cannot let you down people!!!"

I toyed with what the person was "surrounded" with for a while. I went from despair, to the Holy Spirit, to blood. Blood made me listen to the song a few more times and made me think that the person died and that is why they "found" God. This made sense with the "just a little too late" part.

Finally, I went to comment back to you and realized I could see another video of the song that was probably the music video you were talking about and not the Lost trailer I found.
I liked this video much better. It was obviously a take on the City Of Angels movie with the band members being the angels. On one hand I liked the irony of God's hosts being all around the person who died in the video and they just missed God's presence because (as I believe anyway) God is always here, regardless of if he is recognized by others. But I thought the band members played the angels with a nonchalant attitude, as if God was around, but didn't care. This, I think, is a very real assumption many people have. If they can allow a god in their reality, I think many feel s/he just doesn't care about us.

I finally read some comments on the song from other youtube users and was intrigued by the sense of power people felt when they belted this song out in the shower. I couldn't decided if misery loved company or if they felt justified in their anger because others had spent time waiting to hear from God and didn't... this justification meant their pain was not a repercussion from their prior action but God's fault for not lighting a burning bush in their apartment.

Overall, I think this song is mostly about expectations and the disappointment felt when these are not met. Interesting how those who do not believe in God or a god at all still blame God when their expectations in life are not met. Lots more thoughts, but hard to get them out when I'm not in a discussion and only writing solo. :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!