They grow up too quickly!

How could you not totally fall in love with this sweet face?!?! I spent last Saturday up in Canton playing with my nephew, loving on my niece, and spending some good QT with my family. Matt was off Golfing with my brothers and dad, my Sister-in-love was with the baby at the doctor (which explains my general fogginess this week and the sore throat I woke up with this morning), and I was left to play with this little guy…
As I’m sitting in a spaceship made out of two kitchen chairs, I start to realize it’s been all too long since I let my imagination run wild! We spent the afternoon “Cleaning the Pipes,” (there was apparently a lot of do-do in the pipes) and going on space ship rides to far off places, we moved to the back yard where we starting hiding in trees, playing t-ball, and watching Dillon (my tiny 6 lbs dog) play with the GIANT boxer that lives next door…through the fence, of course (I only wish I had gotten a picture of this!). Dillon and Neil are a lot alike, neither one of them is aware they are only 3 years old, and both of them also think they can take on the world; including giant dogs a million times their size. I sat there and watched both of them run the fence taunting this dog just thinking thank goodness the boxer is enjoying himself!
He’s growing up so fast! It feels like just yesterday I was in the same back yard watching him play with Dillon for the first time:

Sometimes I forget he’s only 3 (it doesn’t help that he looks like he’s 5). I don’t think it will ever change though, when he says “Laura, come play with me” my heart melts into a million pieces and I can’t help but drop whatever I’m doing to go do just that! I love that little man!

I’m Baaaaaack….

Hello blogging world!!! I almost feel like I should start a whole new blog since it’s been over a year since I’ve posted/SO MUCH has changed. However, I think there’s still some fun stuff on this blog and am also just too lazy to come up with a new one…stay tuned as I re-vamp this one!

So why am I starting up again? Well, for starters, I have entirely to many random thoughts in my head that I would like to explore and when I share them with my fiancé, friends, and others they seem to look at me like, “why would anyone care?” Or, “Seriously, Who thinks about these things?!” SO—the internet world gets subjected to it! Besides, who knows if anyone reads this thing anyway right?

I also love to be creative, love to write, and can knock out a heartfelt piece in a matter of moments…so why not? The challenge last time was remembering to post, and coming up with things I thought people would be interested in reading about…my response to this challenge—I don’t really give a rat’s patooty if you care…my blog, I get to say what I want J

So stay tuned as I write about the random thoughts in my head, life happenings, and the general trials and tribulations of being me J

So I'm looking back on the past 9 or 10 months...

And I'm proud to report!

I LOVE SUSHI!

I'm beginning to tolerate Coffee as long as a put a piece of Chocolate in it.

I'm in love with a wonderful boy who never took me on any bad dates :-)

Oh and I still think STOP should always be followed by HAMMER TIME...

(if you have no Idea what I'm talking about you need to go back to the beginning and read from there.)

Changes

So if you had told me 6 months ago that by the end of December I would be a home owner, be in a relationship with an AMAZING guy, and have found a NEW JOB, I would have told you you were on Crack.

But here I am, I became a home owner at the end of August, Started dating Matt in October, had the DTR talk in November, and put my two weeks notice in Yesterday Morning.

The new place has been such a blessing, I am so happy there. It was definitely a project to get it ready to move in, a project that cost me a lot more than I expected, but it was all worth it.

Matt is amazing, but that's all I'll say, I don't want to jinx it :-)

I love the people I work with and I will miss the office very much, but I am SO excited about this new opportunity! I'm excited and nervous and sad and happy and all sorts of emotions all at once...and on top of all of them I keep thinking, I'm going to have to wear suits now! I only own one suit! I've worked in uniforms or an Advertising agency my whole adult career, I need to go shopping again!

What is this new job you ask? Well stay tuned...

Speaking Frankly...My thoughts on Spain...

Artsy picture of the Church
The Sky
Bobby (the international cornhole association president) teaching David how to play
David at the top of Montserrat
Cibele waiting for Lunch
Michael getting ready to do some work
Pretty Cross
David teaching the boys to make paper airplanes
Noa was probably my favorite child
Although this guy was pretty awesome too!


I've honestly been avoiding writing this post and the thank you letter to all my contributers for quite some time now for a couple of reasons. 1) I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole Trip and 2) Maybe I am sure but I don't like what I have to say.

I would like to preface everything I'm about to say with this statement: The Director of the church in Spain said we did a great job, that we accomplished everything and more that we came to do, and we did exactly what they wanted from us.

That being said...

I don't think I'll go back. I fell in love with the people over there, the church is full of people with such great hearts and such love for the lord and I would love to go back to visit. I just don't think I could go back on another mission trip.

I just don't think it's my place to serve. There were a lot of parts to this mission trip that I was uncomfortable with. Yes the Bible says to lead people to Christ, to become Fishers of Men, but I've never been one to force that on someone. I've always sort of lead by example. I don't think there was any part of this trip where we were physically making people go to church, or not leading by example. I guess it's just a different kind of mission trip.

We spent a lot of the week going on Prayer Walks through the different Cities. While no one, including myself, will argue that the power of prayer is anything but massively strong, I just feel like prayer walks are one step away from that guy standing on the corner of Andrew Young and Peachtree in his purple pimp suit screaming about how we need to find the Lord Jesus or we'll all go to Hell. We aren't screaming out, but we're walking around the City, praying out load and asking God to change the hearts of the people in that city so that they can come to know him. Sounds great, feels a bit like a polyester pimp suit.

We spent a lot of the week discussing the Catholic Religion, a lot of the conversation was centered around the fact that the Catholic faith has a disconnect from God and his people. However I felt like we were missing the big picture. Yes, these people choose to worship God, our god just as much as it is theirs, in a different way, but isn't the important thing that they are worshiping? That they believe that Christ is their savior and that he died on the cross for us? I guess I just feel like I don't really care how you choose to worship God as long as you are doing it.

I can't wrap my head around a God that would choose to have millions of souls go to Hell just because they don't have the opportunity to know him, so I choose to not believe that. I choose to believe that all our religions worship the same lord, if you look back in history you can see how they all stem out from each other. The difference is that I also believe that God sent his son to die on a cross and save me from my sins. That does not make me better than anyone, that does not make me a perfect or sinless person. I still make mistakes, I still falter, but I have someone that I can run to and lean on when that happens.

I just feel like I might have been better used going to Africa to dig wells, or going to Mexico to build houses.

In the end you live and you learn and I'll know for my next trip.

Again, much was accomplished, and the church saw their biggest turn out ever the Sunday after we left, I just guess I would love to be able to show a before and after picture to everyone. We went over there to run a workshop on small groups, we did that and it went really well. We cleaned up the area surrounding the new church and cleaned inside the old church. Those were great accomplishments. The trip went REALLY well. If you gave please don't think your money didn't go to great wonderful use, I'm just still trying to sort out my thoughts on all of it.

LSB

More Sports?

What else did you do this weekend Laura?

WELL In case I didn't get enough sports on Friday night, I was up at 6:30 on a Saturday (my sister better love me) to go to the Auburn/GA game. I think my friends might kill me but...I rooted for Auburn

We had a great time and it was an awesome game, right up until the very last second, literally.


The rest of the weekend was filled with Housewarming parties, church, seeing Joe and Alicia, and hanging out with Matt. It was a good weekend, but I can't wait until next weekend too! Leo's getting Married!

Thrashers

I went to my first Hockey game since I was Six (or 8...I was young, it was the Atlanta Knights) this weekend! SO much fun! We were sitting at the very top (no really, like 2 rows from the back) but even those seats were pretty awesome! Then for the 3rd period we went down and sat closer. They have these little thrasher birds that hang from the ceiling and when we score a goal the spit fire!

Matt and I took a picture after everyone cleared out. We're a little shiny in it but there it is, then I played around on Picnik...(that's a whole nother blog on how excited I am about that) and came up with this...