Reason to Rejoice

I have said since we have gotten married that I wanted to go to Hawaii for our 10th wedding anniversary.  We will celebrate 10 years of marriage on August 7th and we just returned from an 8 day trip to Hawaii!  I am one spoiled girl and I cannot wait to share our trip with you!!  God is so good to me...far beyond what I deserve. View from my balcony We left for Honolulu around 11am on Monday, July 21st.  The plane ride was longer than any I have ever taken before - right at 8 hours.  It was a direct flight so we were in the same place the entire time.  The flight, surprisingly, did not seem as long as it sounds!  I read a great deal of the newest book by Francine Rivers - Bridge to Haven, watched TV, listened to music, and actually was able to sleep a little.  We arrived in Honolulu around 2:00 Hawaii time which would have been 7pm Texas time.  By the time we got to the hotel and settled, we were quite hungry so we ate at the little ...

I love this girl!  I mean, really.  She makes me crazy and makes me laugh all at the same time!  I often joke that if she would have been born first, she would have been an only child.  The sad thing is that I am not sure I am joking! ;)  Seriously, our lives would not be complete without her and she fits into our family just perfectly. Hannah is now 2 years and 7 months old.  She is extremely verbal!!!  Like she can carry on a full-blown conversation with anyone and you can almost understand everything that she is saying!  She is very active and runs away from me all of the time.  We are working on it.  She is into everything.  You give her about 15 minutes of freedom and she is destroying something!!!  Maybe she will be an engineer when she grows up!  LOL! She knows her ABCs and she can count to 10, maybe higher, not sure.  She displays dominance in her left hand about 90% of the time.  She loves to ...

I love blogging.  Now that I am not working as much you would think that I would have more time to blog more regularly but it just isn't on my "list."  What am I talking about?  I don't make lists!!  Hmm...maybe I should.  That might help.  I digress....where was I?  Blogging....it helps me to keep track of our ever so fast life.  It helps me to feel like I am processing different thoughts and feelings.  I am a processor.  And my hope is that my blogging will also benefit others that read it.  Maybe you can relate to where I am in life somehow or you have dealt with some of the same things that I have.  My biggest hope is that it points others to Christ and if any of my readers are not Christ followers that they know what that means and how to do that.   Today, in this post, I am going to share a part of my testimony....the road that lead me to Christ, how easy it was to trust in Him, and how you, too can do that if you...

A few months back, our women's ministry at church did a Bible study called Lord, Change My Attitude by James MacDonald.  Let me just say, it was incredibly convicting!  Even the weeks and subjects that I didn't think would be a huge issue for me proved to be where God worked the most.  I wanted to blog about it each week but my life is just a little crazy and I didn't get a chance to do that. Then, I started a few weeks ago, going through each week to share what God was showing me through those weeks and realized that it was going to be incredibly long and I would probably lose a ll two most of you.  So, let me just give you a brief overview and encourage you to do this study.  I cannot say that it was fun but I will do the dramatic and say that it was life changing! It was a 10-week study with the following subjects. Weeks 1 & 2 - Replacing a Complaining Attitude With An Attitude of Thankfulness Weeks 3 & 4 - Replacing a Covetousness Attitude Wi...

I have had several questions regarding nursing school and work and what my plans are for the future so I decided to update everyone. As most of you know, I have been taking classes for the past year in pursuit of going back to school for my bachelor's of science in nursing.  My original thought was that I would try for an accelerated program and do it as quickly as possible in order to minimize my time away from my family.  The only two programs that do that in this area are Baylor School of Nursing (Dallas extension) and Texas Christian University.   Last semester I took Anatomy and Physiology I and Chemistry (YUK).  I got an A in both classes!  WOO HOO!  This semester I am taking Anatomy and Physiology II and Microbiology.  I am doing well in both of these classes as well.  :)  For Baylor I still need two semesters of a foreign language and as I started looking, I have met all of the requirements for prerequisites for admission to T...

This past week was spring break.  I am going to recap all week in one post. Day 1 & 2 ~ These days were exciting for me because I was able to start a new journey (again) with Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital.  As part of the hiring and starting to work process, I had to attend hospital orientation on these two days.  After being there previously (with a 1 year break) for nearly 5 years, this was just a big review for me.  I love this hospital!  It truly is one of the best places I have ever worked.  I am so glad I was given the opportunity to come back with my people!  I work my first shift on the 25th!! Day 3 ~ This was Lauren's actual birthday!  We took Rachel and Hannah to "school" and then we had a day for just the two of us.  We went to Rainforest Cafe at the Grapevine Mills Mall. That is her yearly birthday lunch pick.  It was CRAZY crowded because it was spring break and after waiting for 40 minutes, I reali...