My nose in a book

Friday after work I picked up The Help at the library and have been sucked in ever since. I got the book on CD which helps make my drive go by faster since the radio can get old after awhile. I have been listening to the book non-stop since I got it. I was intrigued since I heard the movie was great and wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. I loved the book so much that any spare moment I had I was listening to it. I listened to it while I cleaned the house, on the computer waiting for Kyle's parents to get home, made unnecessary trips so I could listen to it in the car. Kyle came home and I was staring at the blank TV listening to the book. He gave me strange look and just shook his head. He does not understand how a book can be "that good" that I would want to listen to it all the time. I am excited to see the movie and see how they compare. Besides The Bible or a Beth Moore book, this has been a really great read for me lately :)

Here are some  funny quotes from the book {really the whole book is filled with great stuff}. The characters all have a unique personality and without seeing the movie I can picture how they are going to be.

"Prayer is like electricity, it just keeps on going" Aibileen

"I waited on white ladies who walk out the bedroom with nothing on but their personality" Aibileen

"That old dusty Bible she keep out for show" Aibileen

"Benny, go tell daddy he better get his fool self out of that bed" Minny

"I can see Mrs. Celia in the backyard in a pair of hoochie pink satin pants and black plastic gloves. She's got dirt all over her knees. I have asked her a hundred times to quit digging dirt in her dress up clothes. But that crazy lady never listen" Minny

Our YL Journey

My journey began at Sayre where I had an awesome time leading with Jen, Clinton, and Kevin. Thinking back on my time there was really amazing. I was really blessed to have a team that would make time to come see me at EKU {all the other leaders were from UK and EKU was about half an hour from UK}, let me stay at their apartments if I needed somewhere to hangout after visiting Sayre, and had great fellowship with them. From leading at Sayre I knew what a YL team was suppose to look like and the community of believers in Lexington is something I will treasure. I was able to help out with Cheerleading where I got to meet some great girls and had an "in" into the school. It was great going to a basketball game {since they did not have football} and be able to hang out with the cheerleaders. Since Sayre was in downtown Lexington they did not have room for an athletic center so they had to put it right off the highway. This worked out great for me because it was only a 15 min drive from EKU. My sophomore year the Lord put it on my heart that it was time to come home. After many tears of thinking about leaving EKU and coming back home for college I decided that was what God was telling me to do. I think this was the first time that after I made a decision God gave me peace about it. It was not easy telling my parents I was coming back, leaving my great bible study at  EKU, or leaving Sayre.

"The humble will see their God at work and be glad. Let all who seek God's help live in joy"

Psalm 69:32

Once I came back home I got placed at Wyoming HS and got to lead with my YL leader Theresa. I was just starting to come around to YL and Theresa was leaving Taylor to get married so we never really hung out when I was in high school. At Wyoming I was blessed to see kids have a heart for their friends and want to share God with them. I also was able to coach middle school cheerleading for one year and help with the high school team. I meet some very special and rambunctious cheerleaders, but my time with them is something I will never forget. I  also got close to quite a few girls that came around often and I loved meeting with them and discipleship. My team was amazing, I had such a great time at our team meetings. At one time there were 7 people on our team {two married couples}, Wyoming was extremely blessed to have leaders sharing Christ, their lives, and meeting kids where they were at. Wyoming was in the same league as where I went to high school so it felt very homey.

Sayre and Wyoming were both smaller schools but after Kyle and I got married we started leading at Oak Hills, where Kyle had been leading since he got placed. I was extremely excited to do ministry together and where we lived. I was also nervous to be leading at such a big school {2,716 students go there} and I was also going to be the only girl leader a little bit after I started. There were some girls already coming around which was great since I could no longer go to the school when it let out {since I have a big girl job} and cheerleading did not work out {the coach never responded to my emails}. It seems at Oak Hills when students become Juniors and Seniors if they don't make YL their ministry they stop coming, which is what happened to most of the girls that I meet at the end of the summer. As a team, it became very discouraging when there was only one or no kids that would come. We would go to games, musicals, helped at After Prom and would see kids we knew but the relationships would stop at the surface. It's hard to get to know kids when you can never meet with them. We wanted to get parents involved but the students we knew parent's were also busy and could not usually make it to our parent meeting {we did have two parents that came with great ideas}. I had mentioned here how after much prayer we are now leading at Taylor High School.

Kyle's YL journey {from my perspective} had always been at Oak Hills. He had faithfully been there for four years and honestly I don't know how he did it. In those four years they have had few {if really any} kids make the ministry their own. When Kyle first got placed he started running with the Track team where he got to meet a guy that we still see every once in awhile {now that he has graduated}. Kyle did go to camp one year with three guys which was a highlight of his time at Oak Hills. There were a few guys that came around that "got it" but they did not know/want to share it with their friends. The past two years have been the most difficult for Kyle. It has been discouraging to not "see" {since we know he is} God working/not knowing what God wants for YL at Oak Hills. It is always hard when you make friendships with kids and then they become too cool to hang out with you anymore and the choices they make are so upsetting {which could be said about one guy that Kyle got close to}. I sometimes feel like Kyle has not really ever had the "YL

Kyle's faithfulness at Oak Hills shows alot about his character and us going to Taylor has been harder for him. Our flesh wants to make us feel guilty for leaving the school but we know that we are not suppose to be there anymore.  Romans 15:4 is our hope for Oak Hills, we want the strong hold there to be broken so that God's love can be shown and want to keep encouraging Derek and Matt.

"Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. They give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God's promises"

I went to my first campaigners at Taylor Monday night {Kyle had to work so he has not been yet} and it felt so good. I have a YL journal and when I got to campaigners I realized I had not used it since I was at Wyoming. I am so excited that we will be sharing the truth with high school kids again. It was also weird being the "new leader" since this obviously is not the first school I have led YL at. I am really excited for this new chapter in ministry for us.

Too good to be true?

Back in July I went to Bridal Rama with my friend Brittany to help her get ideas for her wedding {which is one month away!}. While I was there I registered for a free trip. Out of the blue, I received a phone call for Smart Travel telling me they were doing a promotion and that I was picked to go on a three day Royal Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas with a guest with air fare included. The only thing we would have to pay was port fees and taxes {which was about $200 usually}. I was skeptical at first since I did not really believe this could be free and the only catch was that we would have to go for a one hour meeting to hear about there company. I had saw a special on 20/20 where these people would register for all types of sweepstakes {like this was all they did in there spare time} and get all kinds of great gifts/trips. So in my mind I thought I was about to get this great trip to the Bahamas that we could use for our anniversary next year {to quote Kyle "so young, so naive"}. When Kyle got home he was completely skeptical and I convinced him to call to see if he believed it. After talking to the sales people he was still not sure but agreed to go to the meeting {which was suppose to be tonight} because I really wanted to go. He also called his mom to find out her opinion on the whole thing and she gave us some great tips about how we should know if it is a scam. When I got to work today I wanted to find out more about the company but all I found was bad info like this and this. So I decided that this really was a scam and I did not want to waste our night being lured into buying trips that we don't want.

Lesson learned: if it is too good to be true it usually is :) Kyle lovingly said "I told you so". Maybe one day we will make it to the Bahamas :)

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A New School

This will be Kyle and I's fifth school year doing ministry for an organization that means so much to us, Young Life.  Our backgrounds in where we started leading are different and we have both loved kids from different schools over the years. My journey began at Sayre then Wyoming then Oaks Hills but Kyle has only been at Oak Hills {I'll share more details about our YL journey in another post}. For the past few months Kyle and I had been praying about Oak Hills & leading.  Oak Hills has been a hard school to lead at for many reasons and for the past year we have not really felt like we have been "leading". We have been praying at the school, going to football games, plays, swim meets, trying to build relationships with kids but they have not developed into anything or the kids have stopped responding. There was one girl {really the one kid coming around for the past year} that came around consistently but does not have a vision for her friends and did not want to make YL her ministry to reach out to others. Since Kyle has been leading at Oak Hills longer than I have he wanted to meet with YL staff this summer to ask there advice/get encouragement on what we should do because Oak Hills has been in this same situation for the past couple of years. After meeting with staff and discussing Oak Hills an option came up of us leading at Taylor {where we both graduated from}. We prayed for a month and after making the hard decision of leaving Oak Hills we knew Taylor was where we were suppose to be leading. We have felt like we are giving up on Oak Hills since there are only two leaders there now {Derek and Matt} and we both love the school but staff shared this verse Matthew 10:14 at our meeting and it has been our on our hearts every time we think about leading at Taylor. We feel like maybe as much we want to be at Oak Hills and see it succeed that God has other plans and that means leading at Taylor.

We are excited to lead at our alma mater Taylor and to lead with three great leaders {one of which was our YL leader}. We feel like we are still a part of the community{Kyle is a firefighter for the township, he coached youth BB, we live 15 mins away, our parents still live in the district, Kyle's sister is the cc coach and his brother graduated a couple of years ago so we know his friends, Kyle sometimes works at Skyline which is where everyone goes, I still talk to my cheerleading coaches and could probably help} even though we have been out of high school for five years. We are continuing to pray about what the future is for Oak Hills and for our new journey at Taylor. We have our first team meeting tonight and first campaigners Monday :)

Taylor High School

Four Down One To Go

You did it babe! By the middle of November you will be done with school and be taking your test to become a Paramedic! I'm not sure how you have been able to balance school, work, clinical hours, and still have fun {which we both know you still do} but you handle all that is given to you with optimism and a good attitude {except when it comes of school now ;)} I'm very proud of you, thanks for helping to provide for our little family. November will be here before you know it! Study hard!

"My own kind of paradise"

Thursday we enjoyed the beach for one final day. I finally got in the water and was trampled by a few waves but with some persuasion from Kyle I stayed in the water a bit longer. We also got to see hundreds of fish in the waves up close. Not sure why there were so many fish but every wave had hundreds of fish in them. I of course did not get to see this great sight since I took my contacts out since I went swimming, so I missed out. It never fails that once I take them out something cool happens, last year I missed seeing dolphins swim :(.

I saw this picture from pininterest and it became my inspiration for a little beach photo shoot. Kyle willingly took the picture after some persuading :)

Our final night we had dinner at The Deck House. Which was highly recommended and our favorite dinner spot. There were suppose to be fireworks on the beach that night {which I was really looking forward to} but with Labor Day Weekend they decided to do it Friday night.

This trip was exactly what we needed! We needed time to be alone with each other and not have the distractions of work, school, life, etc. The Lord really did provide us with a week to get renewed, a time to talk about some dreams for the upcoming year and for what we want to work on in our marriage.

I loved spending a week at the beach with you babe!

If you couldn't tell I had this {and this} Zac Brown Band songs stuck in my head. They are such a great band!

"I got my toes in the water"

Tuesday afternoon we ventured to Fort Fisher Aquarium which was ten minutes away from our condo. I would highly recommend it since the price was not expensive {like the aquarium in Cincinnati} and it had lots of cool exhibits.

It looks like there is no glass separating Kyle and the gator..eeek

I was touching a sting ray, my face shows how I was feeling. 

I spy with my little eye a sea horse. 

It did not look like that many jelly fish in the tank but once you took a picture you could see tons. 

White alligator.

The biggest crab we have ever seen. 

Kyle was acting like he was gigging the frog. 

We ate dinner at Bowman's Sea Food where Kyle realized he liked boiled fish better than fried. The menus were filled with fried options but I choose a turkey sandwich since I'm not a seafood lover. Once I ordered the women looked at me and said "no wonder your so tiny" {with a thick southern accent and southern draw}.

Wednesday Kyle got to golf at Magnolia Green for a great deal. The had a special for 18 holes, lunch and two drinks for $30. I rode in the cart and took in the sights :)

  

Not happy with his swing :) 



"This champagne shore washing over me, it's a sweet sweet life living by the salty sea"

For the first time {and from now on} Kyle and I prayed about where we would go on vacation. When we heard that Hurricane Irene may put a damper on our vacation we still knew that the Lord had presented this great place for us to stay so we were not going to get discouraged. Many of our family members were worried about us going to the beach since the hurricane was really big and strong but since we could not get our money back we knew we wanted to go for at leash some of our trip but we actually went the entire week like we had planned months before. After being glued to the Weather Channel and talking to the Hurricane hot line we decided to leave early in the morning Saturday {since it was a tropical storm that hit where our condo was Friday} and arrive in Carolina Beach, NC later in the afternoon. We did not have any bad weather conditions driving but driving 11 hours can become tiring. We arrived at Carolina Beach where the waves where big and intense. Many of the restaurants were stilled closed so we enjoyed a frozen people and rested from our long drive.

Sunday we enjoyed a wonderful day at the beach. The weather was fabulous, sun shining, great breeze and the water was not too cold. There was no one at the beach which made it great. We both loved that we could relax and not have lots of people around. We ate at Ocean Grill where Kyle got the catch of the day, grilled tilapia and I got a BBQ sandwich. We asked our waitress why it was so empty here and she said last week they had an earthquake {which we also felt in Ohio}, tornado, water spout, and a hurricane. So glad we came the week we did!

View from our condo

We found the crab still in the shell

A bird had a nice snack thanks to us :)

Another cool find :) 

Kyle decided to do some chipping while on the beach. He was asked many times if he was going to hit his ball into the condos {as the comedian says "here's your sign"}

Sunday night we went crab hunting. I laughed so hard when Kyle screamed like a girl when the crabs would come after him :) We looked like intense crab catchers with our plastic shovels and bucket :)

 Kyle was dancing around because the crabs were coming close to him :)

Monday the weather was great again. Kyle learned how to skim board and I soaked up the sun :) We ate at Big Daddy's where Kyle enjoyed flounder, shrimp, and deviled crab. My meal was wings which were not the best, but when the most of the menu has sea food wings looked like the best choice :)

We felt like we were at a private island since no one was on the beach

We took a picture at the fishing pier