canoe

a picture from the church retreat...i just sat back and let nikki and ben do all the hard work...

Read more...

retreat

we went to menno haven this weekend for our church retreat..great weather, great people, great fun:)  we camped out....which went surprisingly well----except for nikki being totally freaked out by what sounded like a person walking around outside the tent in the early morning hours....

Before we left on Saturday Ben had to do one more piano tuning for U2....this time the guy showed him ALL around under the stage...mixboards, guitars, innerworkings, etc...definitely a secret behind the scenes tour....so cool.... i was jealous...very jealous.. SO...here is the proof my dear blog readers....right before your very eyes....the all access wristband....;)

i love deals....no wait..i LIVE for deals...well, not really...BUT i love to get a good deal and feel so happy when I do---plus I usually save money. i have been desiring the new blackberry curve and wanting to replace my current one.....today was the day my contract was FINALLY up for renewal BUT who wants to pay $200 bucks for a phone when you don't necessarily have the 200 just falling off a tree! SO....I have been trying my very hardest to find a deal where I can get the curve for under 200 AND...drumroll please..... I succeeded !  I went on amazon to see if there were any deals and I came across Amazon Wireless. Seriously. Good. Deals.... I am now only paying $50.00 to upgrade my phone...thats right folks...$50 buck a roos....awesome. and it ships in 2 days....double awesome. I think the only catch is that you can't change you phone or add extra features in the next 181 days...... amm...really... i think i can handle that....i dont usually change up my plan anyways. I love new electronic toys...love to figure out how they work and all the fun things they do and I can't wait to get this new little gem delivered right to my front door...

Read more...

rain rain go away

seriously....the rain needs to blow out of here! Our church retreat at Menno Haven was WET....the whole time. When Ben and I arrived we decided camping was not going to cut it-at first we decided to stay in the bunk house but on further consideration decided upon Super 8 in the nearby town. it didn't cost much more and it was SO much better...quiet, dry, warm-awesome. So-we had a great night!  We stopped at Walmart (oh man do i love walmart-i know lots of people dont-i dont care-its cheap and they have such random great stuff-besides all the essentials). All the halloween stuff was out and I found these awesome bloody handprints you can stick in your window-maybe a bit morbid but possibly super funny. I stuck them in the car window-the girl at the burger king drive through definitely gave us an odd look.....it made me laugh. So yeah-we are home now....thankfully....and dry....and now its time for STOVE TOP POPCORN WITH Flavacol!! YEAH!!!

Read more...

The Secret Ingredient?!

I LOVE popcorn...absolutely LOVE it. every sunday night ben and i have popcorn, cheese, apples, carrots, green peppers, cucumbers, and well..other veggies and fruit..for dinner. Its my favorite meal ever! So..I am always looking to make my popcorn taste SCRUMPTIOUS. Ohh..side note... its NOT microwave popcorn-NO WAY! Its stove top, cooked in a good old whirly pop-nothing compares to stove top popcorn. thats what i pretty much grew up eating and continue to love...ok. onward. I found out that the movie theatres use this stuff called Flavacol to make their popcorn-its like a buttery, salt mix-probably really bad for me-but good. I found out they sell it at GFS Marketplace AND yesterday ben was the greatest husband ever and stopped by to buy some! So...now I am trying to figure it all out-how to make it taste good. another ingredient they use is coconut oil-which is supposedly really bad for you-so i might have to opt for veggie or olive oil... none the less ....this MIGHT just be the secret popcorn ingredient i have been dreaming of....

Tomorrow Ben and i are heading to good old Menno Haven....the scorn of my youth....yep, i hated that place-that 3 day trip to camp was the worst of my life. I mean seriously-i had my hair in braids for all of the 2 nights i was away from home and the braids came out-DRAMA-the counselor had to re-braid my hair-NO one else had EVER braided my hair but my mom-would this counselor actually know what to do?. My mom purposely made my braids extra tight so they stayed in and they DIDN'T! So I cried the ENTIRE time. By entire I mean..every.single. waking.moment. Who can blame me? I was insanely homesick for that one day I didn't see my parents- ONE WHOLE DAY!-poor little christy.

I recall crying in the pool, not being able to eat my meals b/c i was crying, crying as they braided my hair, crying in my bunk at bedtime, crying in the canoe, crying as I helped clean the outdoor bathrooms (yep, outdoor bathrooms-another thing I hated), CRYING ALL THE FREAKING TIME! I was SO one of those totally obnoxious campers-the kind I despised when i worked at Miracle Camp. So..I avoided Menno Haven, and all summer camps, for the rest of my childhood (until I worked at Miracle Camp in college-which now i kinda despise Miracle Camp b/c of things that happened there and people that work there-but thats a whole other drama in itself)

Tomorrow I will be returning to MH for my 3rd time in 28 years. I have done the good thing and forgiven the camp for how it made me feel so long ago and I have made my peace ;) BUT there is one little hangup....we are camping out on Saturday night and its supposed to rain. My disdain for MH might just return for a brief moment as i lay in my tent thinking-why did we not pay the extra $ and stay in the cabins?.....

Read more...

retreat

ben and i went on a small group retreat this weekend.....to some place in the middle of nowhere michigan...mirror lake retreat. we drove through lovely places such as Gary, Indiana and found brochures for unique places.... i even saw a snake...eewwww..i hate snakes. i think it was only a garter snake but still...icky....anyways... I decided to chronicle the weekend in photos.....

Read more...

Jesus was an alien

I bet you never knew that!? Yep-Jesus was an alien-according to my kindergarten Sunday school class…he also had chickenpox. Yesterday one of the girls was coloring a picture of Jesus and she was coloring it green. I said-“Oh, its like he is sick or an alien color” MISTAKE!! Then it was like-ha! Jesus is an alien! They started drawing antennas on Jesus and then proceeded to give him chicken pox as well. I wanted to crack up so bad but you can’t do that when you are supposed to be telling them not to do things like that! One girl also told the other teacher she was going to draw her as a goo-goo-gaa-gaa face with snot all over the face... They are such kind children...

Side note…. danica patrick won the indy car race on Saturday-AWESOME!! Even though im not a huge fan of her (go dan wheldon) I think its so great she won!

Saturday ben and I had a wedding reception at our church in Lombard. It was so much fun! Saw so many people and got to visit with so many people. Ben and I greatly enjoyed it. On Sunday I went with my fam to see my Great Aunt….she is pretty sick with breast cancer but it was so great to visit with her!

Read more...