Camping, Birthdaying, Apologizing, & Updating

To start off, I'd like to make a sincere apology for my lack of blogging! I have been soo un-inspired, and dry. Thankfully, I went on a trip, and my friend had a birthday, or else I'd have nothing to blog about! Ha ha :) Just kidding (well...kind of!).

Adam and I have been busy bees lately. We have been working a lot trying to tackle our debt, doing things with the youth group, finding a new apartment, and trying our best to hang out & spend time with friends & family.....oh ya, and make time for ourselves! Ha! It's been really cool this year to see how God is moving in our lives. We have been taken out of our comfort zones, and placed in unfarmiliar ground in a lot of ways, and it's been really good. Hard, but good. And with our tight funds, it's been fun to see how God still provides ways for us to be together, and have just as much fun if not more!

We are also getting really excited about the election coming up! How awesome is Sarah Palin?! Love her. She definitely inspires change...and she seems like a real home-town girl. And her views on abortion-if I understand her correctly- are SO right on. Love that too. So, all-in-all, I'm pretty excited about it :) And McCain is growing on me more and more. It's very heart-warming to see his patriotism through all of his years in service to our country- the good & bad. If that's not a strong testimony, I don't know what is. Ok, enough politics! On to Camping....

Over Labor Day weekend, we went with a group of our friends to Heber, AZ and had an awesome time! We stayed almost 4 days, which is enough to feel terribly dirty!!!...but good enough to feel like you went away on a nice get-a-way. It even rained!!! Some of our tents got a bit of water in them, but hey, what's the fun of camping if you don't experience nature, right?! The men also got the chance to be super manly and put up a HUMUNGO tarp! They were so proud of it when we were able to be outside in the rain and be perfectly dry :)

After camping, we came back and a few days later celebrated my roommates/AWESOME friend's birthday! The big 2-6!! I cooked dinner and dessert, we watched John McCain's speech, and then played a super fun game of Mexican Dominos...if you have never played then you simply MUST! I never knew how mad & competitive I could get until I played this game! Ha! So, happy belated birthday again Alexa!!! Love you :) I am soo not computer savvy, so the pictures aren't in order...I couldn't figure it out!!! Blah...

Adam and I
The game..
Adam's Mexican Man...ha!
The Birthday Girl & Ben!
Yummy dessert :)

The cooking spot
Adam and I when we first arrived
Hangin' under the tarp!
Our home for 4 days :)
Portraits by the Lake
The Men

P.S. I love comments! So leave some!!!

JJ Heller- New CD- Painted Red

JJ Heller is one of my FAVORITE artists. She is so transparent and genuine in all of her songs. And to top it off & become even AWESOMER (wow, I made that one up!!), she is offering her new CD, Painted Red, for free! All you have to do is download it to your computer :) So, you, YES YOU who are reading this, GO AND DOWNLOAD IT! You will not be disappointed!!! And please please please share the good news with all of your friends!
http://www.jjheller.com/

P.S. I will post her banner on this page so that you can go directly to her site :)

P.S.S. It's only available for a limited time! So, do it today!!
Am I a salesperson or what?!?! :)

Dream On

I feel like I often lose sight of my dreams. Life gets busy, time is precious, and there just isn't enough energy left in the day to do the things that you are truly passionate about.

Recently, I was hanging out with some of my lovely high school girls from our youth group, and I was reminded of a few of my dreams that seem to have floated away with the busyness. I just love mentoring. Not only does it give me the satisfaction of pouring into someone's life, and letting God use me, but it also gets me outside of myself a little bit. I stop focusing on me. One of my biggest passions in life is really getting to know people. People are so fascinating to me. There are so many layers to peel, and as you watch people come unraveled in all of their vulnerability and brokenness, you are able to see the most amazing picture of Christ. You see that person for who they really are, and who Christ made them to be.

I guess the coolest thing about having dreams is that I believe that they are God-ordained. They aren't like goals that eventually come to an end, they keep going, and eventually grow into something way bigger. And most of the time, they are self-less. A dream is making something happen that doesn't seem realistic, and from hearing other people's dreams, it's about having your spirit and other people's spirits be filled & satisfied.

I think that when we compromise on only doing day to day living, we miss out. We miss out on what we could really be capable of. We miss out on our specific purpose that God has blessed on each of us individually. We miss out on building our story.

My Dreams:

1) Starting some kind of ministry for teenage girls. Not necessarily about purity, but about character & integrity. I would love to someday have a summer camp completely dedicated to girls growing in their faith and setting themselves apart from the world & terrible culture we live in today.

2) This seems simple, but one of my biggest dreams/goal is to know and be comfortable with who God made me to be. Not who the world says I am. And completely embrace that!

3) To possibly start a church plant someday. Well not just me, with Adam of course! And effect our community in a huge way.

Those are just some of them. There are many many more.

The Middle Name Game

I was tagged by Shannon to do this fun little name game...so here goes!

The Rules:

1. You have to post the rules before you give the facts.
2. You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life that corresponds with each letter of your middle name.
3. At the end of your post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

M- Maternal. I love babies, and hope to have MANY some day!

A- Apples are not my favorite fruit. I usually take one to work with me, then leave it somewhere around the office...so at the end of the week, I have like 4 laying around! ha!...............................I had to dig for this one, if you couldn't already tell!!!!

R- Reality Television. There is something about it I can't get enough of...people are interesting, what can I say?!

I- Introvert. It seems like I'm an extrovert, but deep down, I'm actually quite the thinker & analyzer.

A- Always working. I'm hardly ever home. Whether it be my actual work, youth group, house work, whatever, I am always going.
That was hard!!! I'm not that good at this! That was for you Shannon :)

I don't have a ton of other bloggers I know, so I will do the usual :)
1. Jessica, 2. Ashley, 3.Karilee, 4. Jenny

We are Blessed!

The pictures above are from a resort Adam and & I are going to this weekend called Westin La Paloma Resort in Tucson. This is where our church's marriage retreat will be held this year. We hadn't planned on going originally since it was quite the wad of cash, AND we are in our still in our "get-out-of-debt-in-a-year" plan , so we decided to decline. FORTUNATELY, some of the people at our church offered us a SWEET discount so that we would be able to go! We really felt like we would be missing out if we didn't go, and we were totally bummed about it, but NOW we get to! Yay!!!

This will be our 3rd time going ... wow, that's weird we have been married that long!... and each time we have gone it has been amazing. We have learned some life-changing and extremely practical ways to improve on our communication, among other things, and we are just so thankful that we get to go again. The two couples that are speaking throughout the weekend are such real & genuine people, which is great because it really opens all of us "attendees" up to be vulnerable & honest. It's all about Conflict-Resolution this year, so hopefully we will bring back some good helpful tips!

Happy retreating to US!!!!

"What happened to the last post?!"

Some of you may be asking that question. Well, when Adam saw it, we had to decide if it was inappropriate...and by the way...when I posted it, I was actually NOT trying to be inappropriate AT ALL!!! But it was just too coincidental....So, there you have it! It was funny while it lasted :) And to the lucky few who saw it, hopefully you got a really good laugh out of it as we did!

Love, Krystle

Happy Engagement Day To Us!

Us Then
Us Now

Three years ago today, Adam proposed to me! It was the most wonderful & much anticipated day of my life. I thought I would recap that day for you all.

Adam and I had a hard time convincing my parents that we should get married. Well, get married sooner rather than later. They really wanted me to finish college before we got married (thankfully I didn't do that because we still would have been dating now! Years later... AH!!!!). But anyways, he told me that day that he was just waiting for the right time to go to them to get their blessing. I was SO nervous about it. I kept asking him when he was going to do it, and he said it probably wouldn't be for another few weeks or so.

Well, that day, he said that he wanted to go on a date with me. Of course I said yes, and we headed off to Mill Avenue in Tempe. He took me shopping, and we walked around all day talking about how we wanted to be married, and what it would be like, and I looked at Bride magazines at Borders. Then he asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. NOT thinking that it was going to be our engagement day's dinner, I chose UNO's Pizza! Had I known otherwise I probably would have chose something WAY better :) But we had a blast anyways. Looking back, I'm glad I made that decision actually, because we aren't too fancy, and that was totally somewhere that we would go in our everyday lives. After that, he took me down to Tempe Town Lake, and we rented one of those electric boats...not the paddle boats, but the real ones. It was dark outside, and the lights from the bridges were on, and it was just so romantic. Adam asked me all kinds of questions, like about what our first date was like, where we went, all of that,...and then he asked me what happened when we had our first kiss ( like he didn't remember! Ha!) ... so I told him about it, and I told him that I remembered him saying right before he kissed me- " I just can't take it anymore". We had been hanging out for a while by that time, and we both wanted to kiss eacho ther so bad! So, that night, right after I told him that story he said....

"Well, there is something else that I can't take anymore"...and he pulled out the ring, got on his knee, and asked me to marry him! ..... and then we made-out for a while!!! Ha ha!!!

Wow. It's so good to remember those times. We were so excited & I think relieved that the day had FINALLY come :)

So, there you have it. The story of us.....(ready for me to be cheesy?!).....

.....AND THE REST IS HISTORY!

Love, Krystle