Weekends Spent Outside

Anyone who knows Andy knows his love for being outdoors. Me on the other hand, I like to be outside but when I want to be which is pretty much as long as it is not sticky out. This weekend was a beautiful weekend so instead of doing any more work on the house we decided to spend it outside. We went to Jordan Lake and walked around for awhile on Thursday after dropping off his car. It is so beautiful out there! There were lots of little kids running around in the little beach part they have set up. We spent most of our time wandering around aimlessly in the woods though. The only beef I have with Jordan Lake is even if you are just going for an hour and not to camp you still have to pay to get in. I mean it's a public lake, come on now.

Saturday and Sunday we spent playing tennis, replanting our roses hoping they might survive and riding a lovely yellow peddleboat on Lake Johnson. Peddleboats are so much easier than canoes or rowboats. I might have a new favorite!

Its also been a great weekend for food! I've tried out those two recipies and they both came out AMAZING! Ezpesially the rosemary chicken. I've never made anything so good I was quite excited. Andy even got to use his grill at our house for the first time :o)

(His apron says Groomed For The Kitchen (Thanks Amber!)...I also have one that says You May Now Kiss The Chef)

Also, Friday I had the opportunity to hang out with a good friend I hadn't seen in awhile. If you are in the Raleigh area and like Greek food you should really check out Party in a Pita. It's a little less expensive than Greek Fiesta and really tastes just about as good. Anyway, it was good seeing him and I cannot wait to permanently move back so I can reconnect with college friends and such.

On the downside, finding a church is becoming very frustrating for us. It's hard to appreciate what you have until you have to let it go. It is that case with my church here in Greensboro. The church is on fire for God and despite how you feel when you walk in those doors, the Holy Spirit always seems to show up and make it known. The churches we have visited have been so dry, dead. With the exception of one but we just aren't ready to go back there yet. We are thinking maybe with the culture difference between Cary and Raleigh we may actually start looking into churches in Raleigh again. If anyone has a recommendation I would be glad to hear it.

Breaking In The House

Oooh. Ha. No one actually broke into our house, I mean come on, we do live in Cary. I mean I'm breaking in the house. I came yesterday to help Andy out with his car. By help I mean picking him up while they worked on it at the dealership. But TODAY I have just started my very first load of laundry. That's a big step! Kind of exciting if you ask me. I also did grocery shopping for the first time. I've decided to try two new recipes as a surprise for him going to the doctor (he tore a tendon in his hand...or so we thought. The doctor says he may have a slight tear but should be fine in a week or two. So yay! No cast in the wedding pictures or in Aruba. Unless it doesn't get better.) rosemary chicken with an orange maple glaze and sirloin kabobs (I don't use the grill though so they wont be much of a surprise). We got this really nice deck furniture but have not had a chance to use it yet so despite the heat it could be a good weekend to try our backyard out. So I've spent the day preparing food and cleaning. It's almost like I actually live here now.

As Andy left this morning though, I realized, for my own health and sanity I'm going to need to find a job ASAP after the wedding. Hopefully next week they will be a little more comfortable with the budget and lift the freeze in the school system. Hanging around here alone is quite sad. I believe that God will provide though. His timing might not be quite as soon as I would like for it to be. But He will provide. But just to help things along, if you have a second to spare, pelase pray that God would indeed provide a job for me. Thanks!

Pants and Peanut Butter

You might be wondering what's up with the new title and address (and if you aren't I'm going to tell you where it came from anyway). It's actually quite a fun story. The pants part is anyway. My nickname since highschool has been Jiff (like the Jif peanut butter) and it's always seemed to stick (no pun intended...I'm not that kind of girl). When I got to college within the first week I found the group of people whom I was going to grow to become great friends with. Included in this group was Andy of course along with 7 or 8 others. We were inseparable and did everything together. One day we decided to go to the gym and I had brought clothes to Andy's suite to see if anyone else had wanted to go. A few of us ended up going and I had changed clothes and left my jeans in Andy's room. We went with his roomate Alex. Now, you have to know that these jeans were stretchy and stretchy jeans usually mean they cling to you. Anyway, when we returned to the gym everyone else was laughing. Naturally curious I asked what was so funny and another friend pulls up a video. Andy had put my jeans on while we were gone. He is 6'2, I'm 5'4 so not only were they tight but they were also very short. It was VERY embarrassing but I'm not sure who was more embarrassed. Probably him since he had such a hard time getting them off. What a great memory. Who knew 6 years later we would be where we are today.

So there it is...Pants and Peanut Butter.

Anyone have any other good pants stories?

Father's Day

Father's Day used to be a holiday that was really hard for me but through the years I have been so greatful for the ways God shows me everyday that He is my one true Father. He would never leave me and will love me no matter what. There's nothing more comforting than that.

The youth pastor at our church gave the sermon Sunday and it was amazing. He spoke about the foundation of who we are as Christians but also used that as a strong foundation for family. It was great that Andy and I could hear that message. It was so encouraging and gave us a glimpse of how we really want our lives together to begin.

This past weekend Andy came to visit. Greensboro is quite boring so there isn't really anything exciting to share except that there are only 47 days until our big day!

Batik

So while in Indonesia a few years ago I purchased this pretty big, red, "batik" mmm....map of basically Southeast Asia. Batik is this really cool fabric design they do in Indonesia where they apply melted wax to the fabric and then put dye on it. It was really cool because at one of the colleges we went to they even gave us a chance to make some! Anyway, my map isn't really batik but they said it was. Moving on...I was trying to figure out how we could use this in our new home without it taking up so much space so I got the idea to wrap it so that most of the Indonesian islands would be showing and then put it in a frame. The frame held 3 photos but I just cut off the extra matting and this is what I came up with. I think it looks really cool and will look great in our grey room...(this room is SUPPOSED to only have red, black, and gray in it...we'll see)

Andy is coming later...I'm pretty excited. We've been doing this weekend thing for soooo long. I think God is really allowing us to really appreciate the time we have together and making it so we will feel even more blessed when we get to see one another every day. Just 50 days to go!

That Wasn't So Hard

Actually it was quite easy. In that case lets do two posts in one day! Here are some of our engagement pictures. Our photographer is Bill Parr and let me tell you, the man is CRAZY! He is a blast to work with and we had a great time. It was such a yucky day but it really worked out perfectly because honestly the weather is gross most of the time we are together, ESPECIALLY when we are in Wilmington (let's hope that doesn't hold true on our wedding day)! So really it was just how it should have been. The water however was FREEZING so forgive Andy's funny faces :o)

It's Been Awhile

I know it has been forever but now with school being out for the summer, me having no job and Andy still working there isn't much to do. We have been quite busy these past few months. We've basically planned the entire wedding and bought a house in Cary. I'll have to post quite a few pictures as an easier way to catch up. So right now there are 51 days until I become Mrs. Andrew LaGrange! We are both so excited to just be married already and start our new life together in our new home! I'll try to figure out how to get the pictures of our house and maybe some other fun stuff up here shortly.