What Everyone Wants for Christmas…

At this time of year I always hear friends, family, and other people talking about how much they wish they had more time off from work, to get shopping done, to be with family, to relax from the demands of the holiday…which is sad too that there are so many demands that you need rest from during a season of joy…but anyway back to topic.

On the vacations topic, John & I are in the unique career position that most of our out of town trips pertain to work for example; youth group ski trip, girls retreat, guys camping trip, summer camp in New Mexico, youth minister conventions in California or Colorado…it’s a tough life. Also, both of us being the youth ministers when we do leave town it takes extra work to fill in all of the whole and get the next weeks work done before hand, not to mention I don’t know anyone affords an out of town trip…they are so expensive. All of this to say, John & I almost never leave town without it being for our ministry the result of this is that John has 186 hours of vacation hours, and I have 208 vacation hours stored up! Which roughly comes out to John having 4 ½ weeks and me a little over 5 weeks of vacation!!!!

This past year our church came out with new policies for vacation hours, each employee can roll over up to 80 hours of vacation (2 weeks) into the New Year. Therefore before December 28 (because we leave for our youth ski trip then) John has 106 hours of vacation (2 weeks) and I have 128 (3 weeks) that need to be taken!!! What an amazing problem to have, sorry I cannot not give some of you these vacation hours to use too.

Thankgiving...San Diego...Third Times a Charm

Happy Thanksgiving! John and I had a great time with Thanksgiving, we saw my dad and memaw on the Saturday before (made roast, quite an accomplishment!). On Thanksgiving Day we were with my mom & stepdad and sister and bro-in-law, and then on Friday we went to John’s parent’s house. It was a wonderful holiday full of family, food, relaxing, and stories.

The pictures here are not from Thanksgiving if you are wondering. The pictures are from our trip a month ago now to San Diego for the Youth Specialties Convention, it was an amazing trip. Though the conference was GREAT!!! With David Crowder Band and Shane & Shane, I must confess we still skipped a few general sessions to hang out with some wonderful friends. And my friend Beth had never been to an IKEA so Heather and I had to take her. The day before the convention we spent at the San Diego Zoo, which was wonderful! Enjoy the pictures.

Also, you will not believe what I am about to tell you…I am once again out of my office for a couple of days only though this time. YES!!! Believe it, our church offices once again took on some water, not near the amount the past two times but the basement is a wind tunnel at the moment. The water this time came from under the wall in John’s office, NOTHING was damaged though. Amazing how after two we have gotten the hang of it.

Softball Play-Offs

Well it looks like the David Crowder Concert was not exciting enough to get any comments, so let’s see if this is exciting enough for all of you.

This past Thursday our church softball team made it to the play-offs, which is amazing considering last spring we never won a game. Our first game was at 8pm and if we won that game we played at 9pm for the championship. I must confess I am not exactly the key component of the team and especially since I had never played softball until this year and so my position is usually the catcher. First inning went by great; I even caught the ball when the batters struck out. Second inning, I am ready once again to prove my amazing catcher ability when the pitch is thrown, and the batter just barely gets a piece of the ball…the ball hit the top of bat, hard enough to put a back spin on the ball and WHAM! right into my forehead. I have never in my life felt such a blow to head, of course there was no helmet and I went down but not out.

We were able to immediately put ice on the knot (which was not fun in 52 degree weather), and after batting one more time I sat out the rest of the game, and the next one (since we did make it to the championship, and the guy that barely got the ball struck out after I was walked off the field).

I kept ice on the knot the rest of the night and the next two days, by Saturday I had some pretty hideous black eyes, to say the least I got some amazing three time glances from people, or simply blatant stares and John got some dirty looks…I think the fact that he is so tall and big didn’t work in his favor either.

After a lot of fuse from others at church on Sunday about my appearance, and a friend in medical school suggesting…I went to the doctor on Monday. She even said it looked painful, but the fact that I never passed out or vomited was a good sign. I have to check in with the doctor for the next couple of days but I should be just fine. Enjoy the pictures, the scrape on my forehead is where the ball actually hit.

David Crowder Concert!

This past week, John being the piddler (a person that piddles) that he is, found something cool on the new David Crowder Band CD. He followed the website and went through more things that only someone wanting to waist time would go through and found a certificate that fans can get signed by the band when you bring it to the concert. So, we printed a couple off hoping to get them signed at their concert this past Friday. Little did we realize that after the sensation of standing through David Crowder’s awesome concert the certificates we had printed off actually worked as BACK STAGE PASSES! The students we had brought were a little sad that we didn’t have some to give them but they lived.

John and I were able to go back stage where the David Crowder Band was hanging out with friends and family, it was great. All of the band members were super nice; of course we didn’t recognize all them and had to ask one which signature we were missing and which person he was. Though we felt a little bit like middle school girl fans and dorks it was worth it to meet David Crowder!

Here's to All Nighters

For some reason much to mine and & John’s dismay the most attended and anticipated event in our youth ministry is the Middle School Lock-In…they only happen once a semester but we are asked when will be the next one beginning the day after the last one.

This past Friday was our Fall Middle School Lock-In and once again our students amazed us and broke the record attendance from the last lock-in. 22 out of our 31 Middle School students came to the Lock-In and they brought 37 friends! Can you believe that?

Over all the Lock-In went GREAT! We had a only one injury (a broken toe) and only one dramatic angry girl, but both stayed through the night. We had tons of help from parents and other young couples that all have a new respect for the fact that John & I stayed up the entire night and did clean up. The Lock-In was from 8pm-8am and we went to bed at 9:30am pretty good for all the kids we had. The majority of the night was playing Capture the Flag and Murder in the dark church building, which I must admit I enjoy almost as much as the middle students.

I think we have pretty much recovered on our sleep, but I feel a sinus infection coming on…you know its like the day before or maybe even two days before you get sick. Nothing really sounds good to eat, the pressure around the nose, drowsiness, and a funny taste in your mouth. But I already started on Clariton D so hopefully I can get this thing nixed before it starts.

OH, and we are back in our offices. It took one week and two days to get back into our flooded offices…way better then the 16 months that it took last time.

Flood 2007

Here are some great pictures! And guess what though these picture may look like they are the office flood picture from a year and half ago NO, these are from today! 5 Inches deep in water, not just mine and John's offices but also the rest of the staff and the youth classroom. And we just moved back into these offices in May! Have fun looking.

Stumped

Do you ever have a random quote or scene from a movie or song come to your head and then you can’t figure out where in the world it came from or how it got in your head? Lying in bed last night, while contemplating how to solve the mysteries of the universe, all of a sudden a movie quote came to my mind…only bits of it and I had to keep repeating it over and over in my mind to even get the whole quote. Usually I consider myself pretty brilliant at figuring movie quotes out…at least with classic movies, but I was stumped. So I turned to John for help, and he agreed that it was completely familiar but could not figure it out either. Well, of course I could not go to sleep without solving this tormenting mystery. Finally after about 10 minutes of repeating it to each other, and giving our own images of what we saw and heard with the quote I solved the mystery, but can you? Can you tell me what movie and scene this quote is from; “…it is but a faint idea, anything more then a whisper and it will vanish.” Let’s see if you’ve got it!

A Wedding to Remember!

I am so excited that this weekend has past and also now almost officially all the business of my summer is over! This weekend alone was packed with our 6th grade promotion dinner and party, a funeral, cleaning my house (like deep cleaning) because of our open house for the ENTIRE church, and finally a wedding last night. So surely you can understand, I am excited to be done with some duties.

Of course a wedding isn’t really that consuming right, of course not…unless you are performing it!!! Yes that is right, last night for the first time in my life (and most likely the last) I performed a wedding ceremony! My cousin Brian & his fiancé Carly asked me to perform their wedding, why I am not entirely positive other then that they are family and love me. Leading up to the wedding I was not all that scared or nervous, I think it was because I had some many others things on my mind at the same time…but evidently I was more anxious then I assumed. About 5 minutes into the ceremony John, sitting in the audience began giving me hand signals, which I read to be saying slow down (like I was speaking too fast). Although even after slowed down he continued to lip something to me (which I cannot read lips!) then I realized, OH NO, I did it…I had skipped over the 20 pt font in bold and all caps that read PLEASE BE SEATED! I had forgotten to seat the audience after the bride had been given away. Oh, everyone got a good laugh out of it, and the bride and groom told me after that they had not even realized it. So, I lived and made a few jokes along the way that went over with flying colors. And in the end, the important thing is they are married and on their way to their honeymoon now.

After, feeling all of that tension released at the reception John, me, my sister Cyndy & her husband Chris took it upon ourselves to make sure that the disposable camera’s on the tables had some questionable and hilarious pictures on them…just to freak the bride out a little when she develops them.

So, it is done and now I focus on getting everything into place for the fall in our youth ministry.

this Summer & 3 Years!

John & I have had a wonderful summer and have been able to spend time with so many of you that mean so much to us. I am excited to finally be home for at least a week and get all of the laundry done without packing it again right away. We have three weeks of camps, a week in El Paso visiting our one year old niece, a week in Caldwell visiting the in-laws, and some time in Lubbock visiting friends in between camps. And now we are home until we go back to Lubbock and before a church wide retreat. I get tired just thinking about all of the traveling. It has by far been our best summer here though.

Tomorrow, August 1st will by mine & John’s 3rd year anniversary here at Preston Road in Youth Ministry together. Even though most people still do not understand that, yes I am a full time youth minister at the church too…along with John. I don’t know when a youth minister should feel like they have their ministry running like a well oiled machine, but I absolutely do not feel like that. And I have heard this saying that you know that your ministry is healthy and doing well when you (the minister) can be gone for a month and everything still work and move on as usual…if we were gone for a month nothing would be done! I am a little sad about what that might say about our ministry, I just now after three years feel excited about some of the new plans we have for the youth ministry and just recently have begun to feel at home more and more here. It is the first time in a long time that I can honestly say we are not tempted by other ministry offers, not simply because of the obligation we feel to this church but now because it is home.

I hope you enjoy some of these pictures and I will attempt to update more each week on the details and excitement of our summer, there are some great stories. Happy 3 Years to Us!

GroundBreaking and Offices

Another victory in my month! Do you remember more than a year ago when I wrote about the church offices flooding and the chaos that was caused? (refer back to blog on March 22) Well the chaos is coming to a close. This week after a year and two months our staff at the church is now back down in the basement offices, although all of our furniture was ruined in the flood last year and so we still do not have furniture yet, that is why I said the chaos is ALMOST over. We get our new furniture in mid June while John and I are at camp. But for the first time EVER I have my own office and my own phone.

On Sunday our church celebrated the official ground breaking for our new Family Life Center, which will provide a new Children’s wing, a youth area, high class kitchen, full gym with hard wood floors, and a commons area. We are so excited to see this day come, each minister had a part in the ceremony; John & I together said the closing prayer. John said he looked up during my prayer and saw most of the crowd covering their ears…he was obviously joking but everyone has really liked the joke around here. Also to help make it a memorable day for the youth we buried a box that was full of prayers from all of the students about their hopes for the new building and the youth ministry’s future.

The pictures above are our new offices, the room in the basement where the youth will meet (that should be finished in a week) and our land next door to the church where the new addition will be (that is our house in the background).

It has been a wonderful week!

Oh I Thought the Day Would Never Come

What an amazing week!!! After two years of a simi-temporary duplex and then 4 months of living in boxes in a house the day has come and we have a HOME!!!! This weekend John and I moved into our newly renovated duplex, provided by the church. A member from our church graciously remodeled the upstairs of this 80 year old duplex, it was two 1 bedroom apartments and now it is one amazing 3 bedroom-2 bath-laundry room-living room-dinning room and incredible kitchen luxury home. There are still a few things that have to be completed and touched up but it looks amazing and we are so thankful that our time of personal transition is OVER!

Now we need your help, our dining room is too big to just have a table and chairs but too small to double for living and dinning...what do you suggest?

What Going On...

Where to begin…last week I reluctantly flew to Nashville to be part of a Renewal Retreat for Women in full time Youth Ministry in the CofC. Lispcomb University pays for all of it except for the flight there. I say I went reluctantly because after having just said goodbye to my friend that moved to KY I wasn’t really up for opening up to and “bonding” with other women that I only see once a year. However as could have been expected God moved in and around me, and the three days I spent with these women was a wonderful and encouraging time. Though I am not able to see them very often I do feel like I know them well now and they are women that will continually be a strong hold in my personal ministry life. So thank you to all of the wonderful women that I met for the first time and met again.

As for Easter, it was a wonderful day. My dad spent the night with John and I, we had a couple of really good meals (Salt Grass & Cantina Laredo) that he was not suppose to pay for but did anyway. We made some new record scores on this awesome little bubble game that is on dad’s phone…we watched the Ranger’s Game while listening to the Mavericks Game, which if you know me then let me tell you the overwhelming excitement I could not hold back during that (hint: read with heavy sarcasm). And then we went to church on Easter, John and I had to be at both services. I read scripture twice, without messing up. And John did the communion thought, which was so great!

In the communion thought John compared the Garden of Eden with the Garden of the tomb that kept Jesus’ body. He spoke of how in the Garden of Eden, where Adam was the gardener our relationship with God became hindered, and when Adam and Eve heard God's voice they hid and were ashamed. To the garden where Jesus body was buried Jesus was mistaken for a gardener by Mary, in that garden our relationship was restored, and when Mary heard Jesus' voice call her name she realized who he was! I don’t do it the justice John did it, but it was a wonderful communion. I think as we get older and grow in ministry that John will eventually have to acknowledge more and more the gift he has been given in preaching and put it to work.

And then there were Two...

Two and a half years ago now John and I graduated from LCU, and moved to Dallas. It was the second time in my whole life that I moved to a different city (the first being to college), and at the same time all of my friends from college were also moving off to begin their careers. It was so exciting to come to Dallas and begin ministry along side my husband but it was also terribly difficult to start over making all new friends.

I am the type of person that although I love knowing and being friends with tons of different people, I always end up finding a comfort zone, a core group of people that I completely bare myself to. That I share my struggles, joys, and everything in between, it is always difficult to find a new core in a new city. In college it was easy, everyone was looking for new friends, and there I found more then I could have ever imagined that were more dear and precious to me then any I had had before. But moving to Dallas, I am an adult now (supposedly) and adults are too busy to be searching out new friends or to spend much time building relationships. So I prayed and prayed, and I had my friends that had moved away pray for me, and God heard my prayer.

I become accountability partners with three other women, which shared my faith, my age, and my desire to have close friends. It was a bigger blessing then I had even imagined. And I could go on and on about how great it was, but I will move one because there is still more. It is now two years later, back in August one of the girls moved to Fort Worth and though she is not far it was still a goodbye because we would not be seeing her three times or more a week anymore. And so our group was down to three. And now we have come to know that at the end of this month we be saying goodbye to another one from our group. Lesli will be moving to Elizabeth Town, KY. And I know she will hate it that I even wrote about this, but I do it not to make her feel bad or sad but to let her know the amazing answer to a huge prayer that I had so many others pray for.

And now there will be two, and don’t worry its not oh poor Crysty, because I have John, I have my amazing family within 30 minutes of me, I still have Summer, and most importantly I believe. I have already seen though how hard I am going to have to try to keep my heart open though, just last week the newly marrieds class had a big get together because there are so many new members in the class. Sure enough, since we spend all of our time with the youth group when at church we only knew a hand full of the 32 people that were there, and I caught myself thinking…why, why even open up to any of these people because they will just be gone in another two years pursuing their dreams and careers somewhere else. But when I think of all of the joy that I had the past two years I remember that it is worth it, to meet and say goodbye it is all the in between that is wonderful. Sorry this is soooo long, how do you cope with saying goodbye and making new friends? Picture above is Summer, me, and Lesli.

Mavs Madness

Well John has always been a Maverick’s fan but he is starting to go crazy. He has Mav’s fever, he has been craving to go to a game since the season opened and it finally drove him to buy a ticket this past week. He went to the game on Thursday and then on Friday went to Northpark Mall and got Devin Harris’s signature on this picture, but was so sad when he got to the front and all that Devin had to sign with was a blue sharpie instead of the silver. So what did we do on Saturday? We went to Plano to get Devin Harris’s signature again, but not on a picture this time. John had now had enough time to come up with a much better idea of what to get signed. So before going to see Devin Harris for the second time we stopped at shoe store and got a pair of the Converse Maverick shoes and bought our own silver sharpie just to make sure he didn’t run out this time. So John got the Converse signed and I got John’s hat signed for him. And then on Sunday John smoozzed (if that is a word) his way into Mav’s tickets for this Tuesday from a member that has season tickets. Although don’t ask me how the game goes because John has stopped taking me to the pro-games, he says that if I won’t watch the whole game on TV then I shouldn’t go to the game in person.

Cannon Ball

Ok, I got enough complaints about not updating my blog that I guess I have to, even though most of the people that complained don’t even comment on my page…so I expect some comments people!

Well we are doing great, we spent some time in Lubbock for Master Follies which was a blast and we were able to visit with some friends and mentors that have played big roles in helping us become who we are. This past weekend we spend the majority of our time with some of our favorite Dallas people and their kids, which are the cutest in the world. There is nothing like hearing a child scream your name in excitement to see you walk in the room, or have one run to you and pass John (just kidding), it is so great.

But the real craziness of our weekend came last night at the church wide talent show. (For legal reasons and job security I claim not part in this stunt.) At the talent show during a time when our worship minister was about to introduce the next act two of our girls did cannon balls into the baptistery! After which their parents held up signs that scored their jump (10.0 9.7 and so on). And the best part was that we, I mean they didn’t tell a single soul it was going to happen. Oh the greatness of it and shock on everyone’s faces were priceless. Although from what audience members tell me our worship minister was speechless and had the most amazed look on his face. I wish I had pictures for this story; I will have to check with some of the audience to see if anyone got this shot. Oh, and yes the inspiration for this stunt came from the utub video on the internet.

So is that a good enough update to get some comments?

Greatness!

Well our early move out was not in vain. Here are pictures of the accomplishments our church has made towards the new addition to the building. I never new watching demolition could be soooo fun! So, enjoy the pictures of my old house being torn to pieces! And today the apartments next door were torn down as well.

Adventures in Winter Wonderland

What an adventure! We left for our youth group ski trip at 8:30 pm on December 28th. We were going from Dallas to Denver by charter bus without any stops. With almost everyone asleep at about 4am on the 29th I woke up to see how everything was going. To say the least we were driving in treacherous weather! The ground was completely white and the everything else completely black, the only way to stay on the road was to look from road marker to road marker…and between each road marker there was about 5 seconds that I was praying oh Jesus please show us another marker! Well, at about 9am on December 29th we were told that we were not going any further. We got snowed-in in Lamar, CO. Never heard of it? Well, don’t worry you aren’t missing anything!

We were snowed in for 3 nights and 4 days in the wonderland of Lamar, CO at the Cow Palace Inn (which is a Best Western). Though we were stuck and as each day the same report came in, that we could not leave, the 20 students we had kept themselves entertained with playing in the several feet on snow and then coming in the hotel stripping down to suites and going swimming in the indoor pool. We also had a restaurant in the hotel so we survived well enough. On January 1st, which is the day we finally were able to leave all the students had to help dig our charter bus out of the snow! It was quite a crazy site! When we finally did get to leave Lamar (or as our students came to call it LAME-R) we saw another youth group that had been on their way to a ski trip also and were snowed-in in Lamar, but they stayed in a hotel that had no restaurant, no pool, and all the door opened to the outside. The leader said that for two of the days when the Walmart and McDonalds were closed they ate at the gas station whatever they could find. They were with a Methodist church from Plano…so I guess God does the church of Christ more…Hahaha I am kidding, no really I am completely kidding. NO offense to anyone!

On New Years in Lamar, CO we had a midnight devotional outside while it was 1 degree. We all bundled up in our ski clothes (that got no action this year) and had a devo then took communion. Although our grape juice had frozen so it was more of a slushy then a drink…you think that still counts? It was a fun way to bring in the New Year! Anyway, it was an adventure and after that trip John and I went to NCYM in Colorado Springs. But I will wait for another day to write about that. Hope you have a snowy New Year too.