The Print is in!

Here it is! The print ya'll voted on! And Andrew holding it!

Thanks everyone!

another story

Two days ago, We were driving home from work. This actually took place just minutes before the story in the previous post.
We have been working out and my legs are so sore. They were really sore around my knees.
As he is driving, I am telling Andrew how sore I am and so I reach over and touch his knee and say, "I am sore right here!" On the word "here" I squeesed his knee (or right above). He nearly swerves off the road as he screams and starts laughing, I was totally surprised by this reaction. I say, "What the heck was that?"
he is still laughing..."I am boy crazy!"

I love my husband.

Thanks

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for voting. I went with number 5, Cinque Terre.

Not a whole lot has happened in the last few days that I am ready to blog about, but here is one funny story so I don't just leave you hanging.

It has been really cold here. Last night, Andrew and I got home at like 9:00 and had to drag in the trash can and the recycle bins. The plastic handles were FREEZING. So we are already cold (we live too close to home for our car to even warm up) and now our hands are frozen. I hate being cold like this.
So we get inside and we are standing there and Andrew says. "My hands are freezing." I start to think about the warmest part of my body and it was my waist - due to layering and a coat. I take his hand and lift my shirt up a little on the side and try to put his hand on my side...(totally being silly)
He starts screaming and trying to pull away, "NO, I can't let you do this to yourself, you hate being cold, No! Don't do it, I can't let you!!"
At this point we are both cracking up and I am yelling and pulling his wrist, "I am willing to do this for you...I hate seeing you cold! Just let me!"
"Your willingness is enough, Don't do this to yourself!"

We can barely stand up we are laughing so hard and then he lets me put his hand on my side. at this point, his hand is FREEZING!!!!!!! So cold that I can't speak. I just put my head on his shoulder and squeeze my eyes shut (yes, this looked as weird as it sounds)!
He steps back after about 30 seconds and looks at me...then I say, "My side is so cold" (with a laugh, of course) So then the unthinkable happens. He lifts up his shirt to show his side and pushes it against my side that he just made freeze...and then he says. "Holy cow, Your Side is Cold!"
when that moment was over, we just laughed about how weird we are.
And I like to think that you are that weird too, you just don't tell people.
Thanks for stopping by.
Sarah

I need you to vote!!!

Our church has a missions auction each year and this year I decided to put a piece of my work in. So I donated an image printed on canvas, but now I have the hard job of decided which piece to blow up and print on canvas. So I decided to leave it in your hand. Friends and Family, Please Don't Leave me Hanging!!!
I need you to comment today and vote on the image that you would purchase to hang in your home! Majority rules...so I am really hoping more than one of you comment. And. if you read my blog and have commented before, I know you are out there...I will find you and ask you which one I should go with! Feel free to pick more than one and I will take the most popular. So here they are! (It will be 20x24)


1. ocean (minus the hand in the bottom left corner)
2. Italy, Piazza San Marco
3. Night Waves
4. Flying Italian Flag in Venice
5. Cinque Terre
6. Italian Country Side
7. Colorado Train Track
8. The other side of Vegas at night.
9. Wall Crawlers
10. Fountain at night
11. Light Instillation View 1
12. Light Instillation View 2
13. Wall tree
(will edit more vividly)
PLEASE VOTE!

Worship art

Below you will find two paintings that I did in the last week. What you are seeing is a new endeavor for me. It is my response to God's goodness spoken through song and message during a worship service. This first one is about God revealing himself to us by setting us free and breaking the chains/bondage of sin. Amen. I did this one during worship night at LUMY (our youth group) on Valentines day. I didn't have a camera, but I had my flip, so this video is of the painting I did in response to God showing up in places that we don't expect. The words on it are "Your love makes it worth it" and that is a line from one of the songs that the worship team at Life Christian Church in Lee's Summit led. the song was called "I Surrender". Our dear friends Elliot and Joy had us come down and speak/minister to their youth group on Wednesday night, 2-17-10. (ignore the talk in the background. we were deciding where to eat after youth)

This is something that I have seen people do, but I have never done it (till this week). I am excited to see how the Lord will use this new found gift and fun response to worship.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sarah

which foot?....oh, that's what you meant.

Some of my favorites from the night! Switchfoot, Thank you, my friends, for letting us experience music in a way that is always refreshing! Jon, your writing gets better every song!
and on a note of AWESOMENESS...the following pic is pulled from Switchfoot's website. You will notice a blurry circle to the right of the mic...(pic taken by Jon Foreman)...inside that circle you will find Amber and myself, standing!!!
Whooo hoo!

Blood Type

This weekend/Monday we went to the Switchfoot concert. (pics to come) We went with Amber and Vernon. We talked about the Eat right for your blood type diet. I cannot find my blood type! It is not documented anywhere. We (my mom and I) even found my original birth certificate on Tuesday morning and it didn't say...so this has led us to many topics about blood samples and such...
Segue.

We made PB sandwiches for lunch. Andrew had fluff on his. We ate and an hour has gone by, I am doing some work. We have both been silent for almost an hour, and then...

"Sarah!"
He hold up his bag from lunch, it has a dab of fluff left in it.
"I have a blood sample from the state-puff marshmallow man, I need to submit it to the lab for further research."

My response...."Hold on, I have to blog."
but I do wonder what type he is!?

Have a great Ash Wednesday!
S

I love love

Andrew and are having not only a special weekend, but a pretty amazing week.

It just so happens that a gift I got Andrew for is birthday, Switchfoot tickets in St. Louis, falls on Monday night. So, to follow up this weekend we will be leaving on Monday and swinging byAmber and Vernon's and then we are all going to see the "best album ever" - Hello Hurricane, Performed Live! CAN NOT WAIT!

But in the mean time Andrew and I got a hook up from a parent of a student this weekend. We went to our Dave Ramsey class on Thursday night and then checked into a hotel! (for a super cheap deal!) On Friday we had our free breakfast, went to meet Brandon and Angie Roach, (the old youth pastors from Liberty) and had a free lunch and then we went down to the plaza to watch a Valentines day in the VIP room, using the Gift card my Aunt Linda sent us. (we have been saving it for months...Thanks Linda!)

The movie was cute...then we took a swing to pick up a meal to go at Texas road house and brought it back to the hotel to split while we watched the Olympics opening ceremonies.

All of this for $12.00! Dave would be proud!

Andrew and I are in love...And I feel so blessed that the Lord would allow us to share life together. To share like every moment in life together!

So this morning, we woke up this morning to go get our breakfast

Side note: (At breakfast I heard this couple talking. He was making a waffle and she came over to take over so he could go do something else. He said, this will beep in like a minute, just letting her know that it was about half way done...her reply, "yeah, I know, go" in like the most rude and sassy way I have ever heard, you would have thought she was a teenager just learning that she knows more than mom and dad. My heart hurt. I hope we don't get annoyed with each other that easily! Love is patient. So, I guess, it doesn't matter where you are, there is always a lesson to learn.)

and now as I am typing, Andrew is getting ready to go...And on to do our Taxes.

Taxes aren't too difficult for us yet, so for me, if I just look at it like this, "Let's just do this thing and get a return" then it seems like I am getting paid for a few hours of sorting through papers! I am at least excited about getting them done...and then off to the Liberty HS play, the Diviners, tonight.

How are you celebrating your Valentines day?

Marriage purity

In our devotions last week we ended up doing one called the Purity Code.

This section talked about making a life long commitment to purity. It was so fun to talk about how this is a continuous thing. I use fun in a way that is exciting, rather than like a theme park.

We discussed the constant renewing our mind, turning our eyes from worthless things and guarding our hearts. In a marriage, guarding your hearts and keeping your eyes from "worthless" things is so important.

We talked about how we have shows that we watched for a few episodes and we knew they were "worthless" for our eyes and so we have stopped watching them. But are we doing that regularly?

We talked about healthy boundaries in our friendships. We both grew up running around with people of the opposite sex. Andrew had a ton of friends who were girls, and I, well, shoot, my roommates in college were boys by the end of the run. This is something that we are very careful about as a married couple. I have so many great guy friends who I have known forever, but if I was to say to Andrew, "I am going out to dinner with (insert a name) tonight. See you later." That would be hurtful to him. There is no reason for me to be getting dinner alone with a "friend".

I feel like this is common sense, but it isn't. Especially for people like me who have lots of friends in another gender. They think "it's no big deal, it's just (fill in name)." The thing to me that makes the difference is that Andrew and I love each others friends and get to know them. I am not exactly sure what has kept the jealousy out of our marriage, but I am fairly certain that it is honesty. Andrew and I are not jealous of the friends of our past and so having friendships with them is not a hard thing to do. So all of us go out together. It's way more fun anyway.

The thing that stuck out to me about this particular devotion, was the questions we were to ask. One of the questions was, "Has there been a time when you were concerned about my fidelity?"

I felt like, for us, we haven't had enough time away from each other to even think that someone could be cheating...but not to take it lightly, there is the Internet and there is texting, and we don't check in on each other...but the answer is NO.

To us, we have to be able to communicate. We discussed how hard this devotion is, asking questions so forward, but the key is being able to actually have a conversation with out hyperventilation. I feel like I have more to say about things around this subject, but am not sure how to word the rest of it...

But you should know that the best way to start any conversations that may be hard, is to pray (together) for grace, patience and understanding...and then the important part is to actually want those things and then to respond in a loving way.

Has this struck a chord with anyone else? Thoughts?

funny

Andrew and I were walking through the hallways at church when we, like high school kids, grabbed hands and swung them as we walked. He squeezed my hand really hard. I laughed and proceeded to tell him that it hurt and he should stop. Then he smiles at me, lifts our hands up, pretends to hold a cup under our hands and says, "Hand juice". Then he pretended to drink the cup...of hand juice...and I think that was funny!

S

Lost...maybe more raveled.

Our theories on LA X . LOST season 6 episode 1 theories.


So, here is the deal, don't waste your time watching this unless you love LOST and if you do watch it and feel like you have wasted your time, don't blame me, I didn't push play!


Also, after watching, please comment and let us know what your theories are so that we can consider your thoughts in our theories.




Link for Jimmy Kimmel. Watch the first one and then change the number "1" to "2" and watch the second part.

LOVE YALL!
S (and Andrew)

A post for those whithout kids. or empty nesters...

Note: the LOST video will be up today sometime, but this post has nothing to do with TV.

Andrew and I want a family but are leaving the timing of that to the Lord. (Don't worry we are doing all we can, but that is not what this post is about either.) A lot of our friends have kids and I love them and hope for the day that the Lord allows us to be parents. I say this to state this fact: WE DON'T HAVE KIDS. This puts us in an interesting situation as adults who work some seriously strange hours. We decided that instead of being sad that we don't have kids, we would take advantage of the things we can do now that will take finding an amazing babysitter to do later.

It has been really hard to adjust to this life. We work with students till nearly 10 on Monday and Tuesday, till 8:30 or 9:00 on Wed and Sunday, and till 5 on Thursday (and then we go to Dave Ramsey's FPU on Thursday nights). Our weekend is Friday and Saturday.

We go go go Sunday through Thursday and because it is all work related, it is all about spiritual development and is exhausting emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. In order to make it through the week, while we still can, Andrew and try I sneak out on late night dates. And our excuse...Because we can.

We have come to the understanding that if we have kids, our lives will change and there are things that we will will not be able to do at the drop of a hat. So we need to completely take advantage of the fact that we realize that.

I have said it before, AMC theatres host $5.00 movies Monday-Friday before noon, Almost every restaurant on the Plaza has a late night happy hour, with amazing prices on food, that starts at 10:00, The record bar has shows that start at 11:00pm. Do we do this kind of thing every week? No. But, we go when we can handle losing an hour or two of sleep.

We don't' really make it to bed before midnight on any given night anyway, so sometimes on Monday one of us will just declare..."HEY! lets go on a date this week."

This week we did it on Wed. night. After leaving the office at 9:00, we went home and got a coupon we had and headed to a movie. We went to see When in Rome, Which was actually really fun. And a romantic comedy which makes us romantic...and comedic...Plus, as I have said before, gives us something else to talk about.

Before I tell you the rest about the week, I will have to justify (I told you, we are in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University). So, Andrew then says he is going to take me out on Friday morning too! whoo hoo...Again, because we can. So we have a gift card for a local breakfast joint, Ginger Sues,

so he took me there, and then to see Dear John before noon! (I read the book this week wanted to see it.) MORNING DATE and LATE NIGHT DATE in one week and we only spent $17.00!

The moral of this post, If you don't have kids, don't make excuses to stay home! Fancy yourself up every once in a while and stay out late. It is good for you. What we do know, regardless of whether you have kids or not, you have to keep dating!

If you have read all the way to this point in this post and you have kids, leave a comment and give some advice on what you do to keep it exciting once you have kids. We would love to learn from you!

Love to you and yours...
Talk to you soon.

S

hang on to your seats...

Andrew and I were prompted by a dear friend, and committed reader, thanks Erin, to do a video blog each week after LOST. Challenge taken, hopefully before sleep tonight the video will be up, we are going to re-watch the episode before the post.

Also, I have 2 other blog posts coming that I am excited about so in the next few days you are going to get slammed!

I am so excited...

Talk to you soon.

S

its a...

It's a BOY!!!!!
Their doctor was kind of a jerk, the femur was a little shorter than the doc would have liked, but other than that, things are good! Michelle says the ultrasound of new boy next to Fred's looks so similar. So, I guess he gets the hand-me-downs of all the cool stuff that I got Fred, but if you have sons, let me know where to find cool stuff. You know, aunts with out babies can spend a little more than mom's and dad's!!! So give me ideas to spoil the little peanut!

Love,
S

we find out today

In case you don't know, I am obsessed with my nephew, Fred. He is a little stud, just over 2 years old. Of course, I think he is the sweetest thing on earth, but it is probably just because he loves me and calls me silly! Mostly when he sees me, he says, "Drew!"...

Maybe you didn't know that Michelle (my sister in-law) is pregnant again, but she is, and today they find out what they are having! This is soo exciting, but also a little scary, cause if it is a girl, Andrew will have to take all the cash out of my wallet so that I don't buy her everything. Fred thinks it is going to be a girl, but we will soon find out!

While Andrew was getting ready in the bathroom this morning I scream, "ANDREW, we find out today what Michelle's having!"

"Oh, yeah!" he said excitedly, "I hope it is a baby!"

"What if is was a moose?"

"That would be painful...(moment of thought)...but do moose have antlers at birth."

"I don't know"

"We should really check that out."

It was almost as if we were beginning to consider that it wouldn't be painful in the case of a moose...

Again, strange stories in the life of Andrew and Sarah.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Sarah

are you LOST?

I know that some of you don't watch TV and some of you don't find it fitting to watch much TV...but I really feel that in my life and marriage, TV is just wonderful.

I always feel like I need to justify this topic because people would think we are crazy, but It has to be justified so that you can get a little perspective into the life of Sarah and Andrew.


One more justification before I begin...we really do use TV/pop-culture references all the time to teach, plus it gives a conversations starter with students.


Okay, now I can start.


As previously mentioned, Andrew and I spend every hour together, waking or not. We love it, but working in the ministry all day everyday gets a little exhausting. Things are serious all the time...reading, planning events, planning worship, planning Bible Study (x4), dealing with student issues, meeting with students about those issues, re-thinking the program to be more "successful", writing college recommendation letters, reading to learn, clerical work, e-mails and dealing with the parents...all while trying to stay Kingdom focused...Yes, there are times for laughter and fun in all of this, but you can probably see that this is what most of our conversations are about...so, for us, there is no getting home and saying, "how was your day"...not only do we know the answer but we were literally having the same day. Our conversations are great and we talk all day long, but we need to have something else to talk about. There are 4 things we do so that we have some down time.


1. Having friends, which is a whole post on it's own.
2. Reading books.
3. Watch TV and movies.
4. Go on adventures. (also another post)


If I told you how many shows we watched you would ask, "HOW?"
the answer is, I don't know how, but I think the Lord allows us extra time so we have something different to take our mind off the things that might tempt us to worry...you can disagree with this all you want, but I'm right! ha ha!





So the purpose of this blog is to let you know, as if you didn't already, that Our favorite drama, and maybe favorite all around...yeah, okay it is...show is back on this week with its final season.
LOST airs on Tuesday nights starting this week. Which is normally a huge WHOO HHOOOO! BUT GUESS WHAT? Tuesday night is also the weeknight that we host Bible Study for Juniors and Seniors at our house...conundrum? you may not think so, but we were a little confused on what to do...we have a tradition. We watch LOST at Lora's house (she is amazing) about an hour after air time so that we can fast forward through commercials and then talk about it for about an hour after...yes...you read that right.
You may be wondering what DVR is for if we are not going to utilize it in this case. Don't worry we do, but you can absolutely, under no circumstance, call yourself a fan of LOST and wait an entire day to watch it if for no other reason than someone is going to tell you something before your view time and spoil it.
So how have we solved the mystery that is Bible Study/LOST...we moved Bible study up an hour! IS THIS INSANE?


nope.
but it is keeping us from being insane.
What keeps you from insanity?


Love ya
S
Andrew says, "Ask any other LOST fan what they would have done...They would have canceled."