Suzy's 1st pumpkin patch visit!

In El Salvador, the only equivalent to going to a pumpkin patch was going to the PriceMart (like Sam's club) and hoping they had a couple of imported and overpriced pumpkins on the produce aisle. We decided to get out of the city and go to a real pumpkin patch this year! Nevermind if there were palm trees actually in the pumpkin patch as well. 

For those of you that aren't familiar with the process, actually the last step for getting her US citizenship was to have her picture made while surrounded by a lot of pumpkins. 

;-)

a friend kindly pointed out that this actually looks like a portrait of our family. interesting.   

ps- notice a theme other than the pumpkins? That's right, ever since Suzy got those sunglasses at the 99cent store, they haven't come off her face. Even at bedtime.

creating space

One of my classes this quarter is entitle "Spiritual Traditions and Practices" and I think exactly the course I need right now in the midst of a really busy schedule. The purpose of the class is to break away from the purely academic study of the Bible and ministry and focus on our relationship with Christ and developing rhythms of spiritual practices. Sometimes it feels weird and unproductive to sit in silence with the Lord for 45 minutes instead of doing indepth Bible study, but our professor's book Subversive Spirituality argues that being we have to go against our culture's tendency to have "hurry sickness" if we want to hear from God.

Last week we took an all day silent retreat to a nearby retreat center called Mater Dolorosa. It was the first retreat I had ever been to where there was no main speaker, no small groups, no ice breakers, and no full schedule of activity. Rather, the purpose was the be in silence before the Lord and hear His still, small voice.

Mater Dolorosa retreat center

Henri Nouwen describes spiritual disciplines as simply creating space for God to show us his grace and "to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the beloved".

Even Mother Theresa, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her works of charity, said that her calling, her vocation was to simply belong to Jesus.

The retreat center was awesome-full of vineyards, orchards, pine trees, animals (bears, mountain lions, deer), flowers, and the stations of the cross.

There was a huge tree in the middle that I sat by for a couple of hours. I realized that in order for that tree to grow so huge, it had to have time and it had to have space. In the same way, if I desire growth in my relationship with God, I have to give it time and create space, just as Nouwen reminds us. Although I have typically filled my "quiet times" with reading and studying and doing, it has been so refreshing to learn how to just "be" before the Lord and allow His grace to fill that space.

the tree

7 years ago today...

...Elvis popped the question! Although it wasn't so much "popping a question" but rather officially deciding together on something that we both we sure of since the first week we met. We don't have pictures of that day because even Elvis didn't know that it was going to be "the day", so I've included some pictures from around the same time so you can chuckle about how much we've changed (especially the hair line of a certain someone...let's just say that now we get to see more of his purty face!) I actually really love the spontaneity of the whole thing...how it just bubbled up out of his heart in the moment.  

He wasn't planning on doing it that day because it didn't make much sense....We didn't have a ring; we didn't hardly have a dime in the bank; we didn't own anything except for a telephone, some clothes, and a hammock; we didn't have a plan, but we had a whole lot of love and at least a mustard seed's worth of faith. 

God was able to involve our whole community to surprise us with the ring and all the other details needed for our new life together.

Less than 5 months later, we were saying "Si, prometo" (I do) at a perfect (for us) beach wedding.   

Monday 2:24 pm

i heart LA

Elvis and I have been looking for a while for art to put up in our house to symbolize our love for and calling to LA, and when we found this on Etsy, we had to get it. This shot was taken from MacArthur Park, the neighborhood I've written about before where I did my internship this summer and where we plan on living in the future.

Our church is also doing a church plant in the neighborhood, and this past Sunday the pastor that we be leading that church spoke and gave some really amazing facts about the neighborhood, which is the most densely populated neighborhood west of the Mississippi: 130,000 people in a 2.5 square mile area (at least those are the people that were counted....I'm sure there were tons more unaccounted for due to the nature of the neighborhood).

And of all those people, there is not a single English-dominant church to meet the spiritual needs of the 2nd and 3rd generation immigrant youth living in the area.

The church plant is currently praying about the possibility of meeting in an empty grocery store lot in MacArthur Park, and it just so happens that it sits exactly on the site of where Pentecostalism started in 1906 with the Azusa Street Revival.  The neighborhood is a place where immigrants find a piece of home and historical movements are birthed (including 2 major transnational gangs...) and we are humbled and thrilled about the possibility of being a part of what God is stirring up in that place that has snatched our hearts.

"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Jeremiah 29:7

First day!

We all survived with smiles on our faces the whole day, so we went to get Thai food to celebrate her first day of preschool (her choice)!

Now it's my turn...today is my first day of classes for this new quarter! Hope I do as well as she does...

On the night before preschool...

Suzy starts a preschool co-op tomorrow. I have had mixed feelings about it, as it definitely marks a new stage in life and more rigidity to our schedule which I'm not sure about it. However, the good thing is that I will be one of her teachers so we get to go through the transition together! Some other Fuller moms have started a preschool co-op in which the 6 of us take turns being the teacher and the assistant for a 3 day a week preschool. That means that over a 2 week period, I will be the teacher for 2 days, the assistant for one day, and have 3 days off! Whoa! Since Elvis is home in the mornings, that means we can even have morning dates just the two of us! what a novel idea!

Turns out that Mondays (tomorrow!) are my day to teach, so I am brushing off those teaching skills from back in El Salvador. However, in preschool in ES I used to have to teach Phonics, Bible, Writing (in cursive!), Math, Social Studies, Science, and Reading- all in English which was their second language. And one year I had 27 kids with no assistant. So i think I should be able to handle Suzy's class of 5 kiddos, teaching them music, crafts, story time, and outside time.

So tonight, I was getting all sentimental about her growing up, and was snuggling her close and cradling her in my arms. I told her how proud I was of her being such a big girl and asked her how she was feeling about going to preschool tomorrow.

She relaxed in my arms (even though she hates being held like a baby these days since she's a big girl now) and smiled so sweetly as she met my teary gaze. And her response was,



"Mommy, you have a big booger in your  nose."

San Diego

Friday morning, Elvis and Suzy and I hit the road for an overnight trip to San Diego! I can't remember the last time we did an overnight trip just the 3 of us! the first day, we checked out Ocean Beach, ate some good Cali-Mex food (fish tacos and surf and turf burrito with french fries inside), and grabbed some dinner in Little Italy. 

On Saturday, we took advantage of our hotel's pool, then headed to La Jolla Beach, famous for its seals! They were the cutest! And would swim right up near to you with no hesitation. Apparently they often sun on the beach where we played that day, but they mostly stayed in the water, on the rocks, and we watched them catching waves and rolling all around. Watching them wiggle and squirm their way up the rocks in the middle of crashing waves gave me a whole new respect for those animals and makes me wonder why God gave them such tiny little paddle arms and feet.

we hung out in this cove and swam all afternoon

little mermaid

i would want to just take a nap too after all that work trying to get on the rock!

So on the way home, we took a wrong turn and traffic was so bad, we decided to just get on the highway and get off at the next exit and turn around. Traffic was moving about 5 miles per hour, and right when the exit is in sight, BOOM! The Crown Vic behind us slams into us. Awesome. 2 minutes after I asked Elvis what we would do if we had car trouble in this town where we know no one, and it's well over 100 degrees outside. He told me to not say stuff like that or it would be bad luck. Hmm...

Anyway, of course as soon as we stop and start calling the insurance company, Suzy needs to poop. Fortunately, I had the emergency potty in the car, and since traffic was barely moving anyway, I let her go in the back seat in the potty. Of course, a police officer comes up right then, demanding to know why she is out of her car seat. He was not sympathetic to the poopy emergency, and it kinda made me want to show it to him and ask him what he would do. He also asks for our insurance card, which even though our insurance is up to date, they had not sent us a new card so that was expired. Policeman refused to talk to the nice insurance lady on the phone, saying that it could be my sister for all he knew. So now I'm worried that we are going to get two tickets, when the accident wasn't our fault anyway! I think the policeman of steel finally realized that I was on the verge of tears, and wrapped up the accident report and we were on our way, with just a little bumper damage. It's really easy to play the "what-if" game....what if we hadn't made the wrong turn, what if we had stayed at the beach just 5 minutes longer, what if the policeman weren't in such a bad mood.....but in the end, it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. And now we know what to do when you are in an accident, something we had always wondered about here in the US and thankfully up until this point, had not had any experience with. 

dance party!

Here are some videos from our trip to NC...there was lots of dancing going on...even Granny got in on the action! Most importantly, dad showed the girls how to do his famous shoulder dance. 

surprise!

You haven't heard much from us lately because we carried out an undercover op to NC to surprise the family! We found a super cheap last minute ticket for Suzy and i (Elvis had to work) and we were able to join mom and dad, marty, sara, and anna at Topsail Beach for Labor Day weekend and then go surprise the grandmas in Wilmington. Lots of fun was had by all...especially those cute lil' cousins! They had a blast together, on the beach, talking to each other down the hall during "naptime", dancing together, etc. Can't wait for them to spend many more special times together as they grow up.

this is how suzy spent 90% of the time on the beach...

and this is the girl that typically can't stand to get a drop of dirt on her???

Memaw!

granny!

fun at Nana and Granddaddy's house, washing her car

more fun in Wallace

We ended the trip on a very high note...getting to meet newborn baby Anderson and newborn baby Corban at UNC along with other really special people!

BFF's all around!

these two are officially my heroines and my two new favorite snuggle bunnies!

i love that Suzy likes catching up with her friends as much as I do with mine

UNC Reunion 2012, taking over Sakura restaurant!

it is officially impossible to get a great group picture anymore with no one flipping out