Almost a Wrap

It's hard to believe that Christmas will be here in just 6 more days!

This year has by far been one of my favorites. We had a lot of ups and downs, but we learned a lot about ourselves and I think we've done a lot of growing.

I was just looking back on my recap post from last year to see what my hopes and dreams for 2015 were to see how life measured up to them.

The first one was to figure out my neck issues and a way to manage them better. While I still have issues going on, this is the first time since everything started that I finally feel like I'm moving in the right direction. I started pursuing myofascial release therapy in the middle of January and it has been such a huge help for me. Not only am I not in as much pain anymore, I have a lot more movement in my body. Unfortunately, since it took over 4 years to get to the point that it is right now, it's gonna take some time to reverse all of that. So while some might look at my doing this therapy for a year and still having issues as a bad sign, I see it as a good sign. This is the only thing that has caused any improvement. Every other treatment or therapy I have tried just masked it or helped with the pain only. Nothing ever helped me to be able to move better. Considering my condition has not worsened at all this year but instead has gotten better, I consider that a huge win! I look forward to the day when I feel "normal" again.

The second one was to be able to encourage women through Bible study or something like that. And I was able to do that! I actually had two different opportunities to do that this year and I'm excited for next year will bring! I would love to do a smaller women's retreat again next year, so that's something that I'm praying on to see if that can happen.

Some of the different possibilities that I was praying about didn't come to fruition this year, but there was good reason for them. After praying about each of them a lot, I realized that I really need to get my body issues more under control before I try and commit to something huge. I had to say no to more than one ministry this year because of that. And while it was really hard to do so, I know it was necessary. I'm hoping that next year will bring other opportunities that I will be able to say yes to. God has been teaching me a lot about balance this year. While I would love to be able to say yes to everything that comes my way, sometimes the answer has to be no. I can't be or do everything, and I have to be ok with that. I do know that I need to get involved more in serving at church in some capacity, so that is something I am praying on for next year as well.

I also mentioned being excited about the changes that were happening in our church. And many things did change! I know there are more things to come and I'm excited to see what happens next year!

As far as being excited for how God was going to mold Josh and I, that has been really exciting. Not only did Josh get a promotion at work, into a position that was created specifically with him in mind, he has been able to serve so much in the youth transition in our church right now by being the jr. high point guy. When we first started dating, we both felt like we were supposed to serve in full-time youth ministry as youth pastors. While that shifted and changed over the years, I know he has always had a passion for young people. So to see him serving in this capacity and teaching jr. highers each week has been so awesome for me. I am so proud of him and the man he is. He has grown so much this year in so many different areas and I feel so honored to be his wife and to be able to walk alongside him through this journey.
As for me, I've learned a lot this year about balance, as I mentioned before, as well as letting go of fear. One of the biggest things that has come up in my myofascial therapy has been some of my irrational fears. I don't even think I realized how crippling some of them were. I have been working very hard in the past six months to let go of some of those things. While I know it's going to take time, I'm confident that I will be able to move past some of them. I've also learned about myself that I get stressed out very easily in certain situations. While I need to learn to work through the stress in some situations, I've also learned that sometimes it's better to avoid certain triggers of stress as well. I need to continue to work on this, but I'm trying to learn how to better manage my stress. Fear and stress are, I think, two of the biggest emotional factors that contribute to my body issues. So I need to continue to work on moving past those things and learning to deal with them in a healthy manner so that I won't feel so tense all the time.

And now, a little recap of 2015 (so far):

We started the year off with a little New Year's Eve party at our house!

We also had a couple of fun times with family, including a sushi date, a hockey game, and we were able to spend a lot of time with Josh's family when everyone was here for his great-grandma's funeral.

One of my dear friends had her baby (!!!) and I had a couple of fun birthday celebrations.

February brought our Vegas trip to celebrate Josh and I turning 30, as well as our 7th anniversary and a trip to Disneyland to celebrate!

March was full of a lot of fun times with friends, including my first ever trip to Dutch Bros and my dear friend L.B.'s birthday.

In April, we went to visit Josh's oldest brother and his family for Easter, and I went to my church's women's retreat with a wonderful group of friends.

We also celebrated my sister's birthday and I had a couple of fun wine outings with friends.

May was packed to the brim with fun stuff! We went to a tea house with Josh's mom for Mother's Day, and celebrated my dad's birthday and my mom on Mother's Day.

We also took a trip to Disneyland and celebrated a couple of other birthdays (our friend V.M., L.B.'s daughter and my sister-in-law).

I also had a fun wine tasting day with my wine ladies, and Josh and I were able to see one of our favorite bands in concert for the 10th anniversary of our favorite album of theirs.

In June, we celebrated a couple of birthdays (my brother-in-law and my friend S.C.) and I had a couple of wine nights.

We also went to Disneyland again and got to have a special lunch at Club 33!

In July, we went on a cabin trip with some of our friends for the 4th of July, and my friend E.K. and her family were here visiting, so we got to spend a lot of time with them.

August brought a lot of fun times with friends, including going out dancing to celebrate the birthdays of two friends.

We also went to a taco fundraiser, and celebrated Josh's dad and our friend K.W.'s birthdays.

And there were a couple of wine outings as well.

September was another busy month. I had a craft night with some friends, and we attended a friend's wedding!

We also went to Disneyland again, and celebrated our niece's birthday.

October was also very busy! We went to Disneyland in celebration of our niece's birthday and our friends K.W. and S.W. came to the Halloween party with us!

We also went to a corn maze with some friends, and I did a wine stroll with some girlfriends.

There were also a couple of fun wine nights, and our friend S.W.'s annual Halloween party!

In November, I attended a friend's adoption shower and took a trip to Colorado to see my CO bestie and her family!

We also had our second annual Friendsgiving and went wine tasting for Josh's birthday.

We also got to spend a lot of time with family for Thanksgiving and decorated for Christmas!

And so far, December has brought some fun things...including another trip to Disneyland, a couple of Christmas parties, ice skating and Star Wars (more on all of that in a future post). I'm looking forward to the other fun things we have planned!

Stay tuned for more about 2015!

Twenty Fifteen Part 9

Fall is officially here! Even though we've only had a few days so far that felt like fall weather, I am super excited!

We started off this month with a nice dinner with my parents. I love the times we get to spend with family and sometimes they are much too far apart!

Later that week, I had a wine night with my wine ladies. It was also a clothing party for a company called LuLaRoe. If you haven't ever been to a party by them before, they have super cute clothes!

The following night, I had a craft night with some friends. Since I decided last year I needed to get more crafty and decorate my house for more than just Christmas, I decided to make a few things to add to my fall decorations. I'm really happy with how the canvases turned out!

My canvases up with my Mickey ears wreath I made last year

The next day, we attended the wedding of two of our friends! We went out with a few friends beforehand and then headed over to the wedding venue together. The wedding was so sweet and the place they got married at was gorgeous! We had some much fun taking silly pictures and dancing the night away.

The following morning, Josh and I headed to our favorite place! We had so much fun! We were there for a couple of days and tried our best to stay out of the heat! It was very humid and unseasonably warm there, but we enjoyed the short lines and were able to see the new parade and World of Color show! We also tried out a restaurant we hadn't been to before. While we loved the food, we didn't realize it was outdoor-only seating. So we sweat a little bit throughout dinner. But it really was such a fun trip and I'm glad we were able to spend that time together.

After we got back, we found out about our friend passing away, which was so hard (I wrote another post about it here). We attended his memorial service the following week and I was blown away at how many lives he touched. There were over 800 people at his service. Josh was able to put together a really nice video that they showed at the service. It was a hard day, but it was good to see the faces of all the people that he loved him, and that loved him and his family in return.

The next weekend, we celebrated our niece's 4th birthday! I still can't believe she is 4! Time really does fly by. Josh's brother's family went camping for her birthday at a nearby campground, so we drove up on her birthday and had dinner and s'mores with them. The next day, we went back and had a family BBQ party for her birthday. It was a great time with family and friends.

The next day, we got to witness quite a few people get baptized at church. I love seeing how God moves in people's lives and draws them closer to Himself. It was a very powerful and emotional morning. Later that evening, we had a church meeting to find out updates about what's going on and what's coming up in the future. Josh and I are so excited for what God's doing in our church. It's such a huge contrast to how we were feeling early last year, but I'm so thankful for God's leading and for the leadership He has provided to our church.

Later that week, we had a fun BBQ with some friends and family. I love when we happen to have a day that isn't super busy that we can do something spur of the moment. It doesn't happen very often, so it's nice when it does.

The following day, we spent some time with friends watching a football game and eating baked potatoes, chili, and lots of other yummy foods. I am not a big football fan at all, but I love the fellowship and food that comes along with watching games.

The next day, I tried out an idea I wanted to do the week before, but it just didn't work out. I sent a text to a bunch of different ladies to invite them to join me at a Starbucks to hang out and talk. Four ladies were able to join me and it was a really great night. I'd love to do this more often, to just throw the idea out there, and whoever comes is meant to be there.

And we finished out the month of September by attending a going away party for the youth pastors at our church. Both of them had served in the ministry for over 15 years. They hired me almost 10 years ago to be a youth assistant, and I learned a lot during my time in that ministry. While it is sad to see them go, we are excited for what God is going to do in their lives, as well as in the lives of our youth kids and leaders.

Other highlights for the month:
My BCBs and I read a book called The Luckiest Girl Alive. It was definitely a crazy read and it has some gruesome parts, but a lot of it really made me think about just how powerful of an influence we have on other people's lives, as well as how easily we can be influenced by others.

We had other fun nights with friends and coffee dates. Josh was able to pick some cabernet grapes with some buddies that they are going to use to make wine! I'm definitely excited to try it.

Things God has been teaching me:
God has definitely been tugging on my heart to move in some different directions. Some of which I definitely would not have had on the horizon even three months ago. It's been amazing and also a little scary, but I'm really excited to see how He's going to use me in some different situations.

And that's a wrap! It's hard to believe this year is already 3/4 of the way over!

A Recap

I was just sitting here looking at the posts I wrote this time last year in recap of 2013.

It's crazy to me that I picked the word beautiful to describe last year, because I've felt like this year has been so beautiful as well.

But I think the word I would pick to truly describe 2014 is progress. Many situations that were going last year on in my life and in the lives of those I love carried into this year...and some are still going on. But I've seen progress. I've seen God working. I've seen some of the good come out of them...and I'm just waiting to see the rest of the progression.

I also had a couple of hopes and dreams for 2014 that I wanted to review and think on.

The first one was to be more intentional in my relationships. I think I've done this fairly well with some people, but not so well with others. This is definitely something I still need to work on, but I see the progress.

The second was to read and journal more. I don't even know if I really even spent any time journaling this year. But I do think I've gotten better at reading. I have my BCB's to thank for reading in general, and I've been a bit more consistent in my Bible reading because of the YouVersion app.

I also said that I thought our lives were going to change a lot this year. While I feel like our lives are kind of similar to last year, I do see that some things have changed. Some of Josh's ministry aspirations have changed, our church situation has changed (hallelujah!!), and I definitely feel like we have changed and grown a lot personally and in our marriage. So while our day-to-day lives make look almost the same as they did last year, I know we are not the same people we were this time last year.

So now, let's do a little recap on this year.


We started off 2014 in Disneyland! We went with my sister and her husband. It was so fun to be in my happy place again with my sister, as it had been quite a few years since the two of us were there together! I went wine tasting with some ladies to celebrate a friend's birthday. I also went to a baby shower for a friend, and went away for the night with some of my girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. I also had a couple of other fun celebrations for my birthday to end out the month of January.

February started off with my first crab feed. I went to Disney on Ice, helped surprise my brother-in-law for his birthday, and celebrated a friend's 40th birthday. And of course, we went to Disneyland to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary.

In March, we celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday and had a pizza night with my worship team. We took a trip to Colorado to see our friends there and I got to celebrate Emily's birthday with her. We were asked to take pictures for our friends' wedding. I helped organize a birthday dinner for my sweet friend L.B. and I did two Scentsy parties. I saw Divergent with some good friends and we had a potential pastor visit our church. I finished out the month celebrating my friend M.D.'s 30th birthday. And my BCBs and I formed our book club.

April brought my sister's birthday and a fun day of celebrating her life. I also hung out with an old friend and we had a great Easter service at church. We spent the rest of Easter Sunday with family and friends. The following weekend, we went to our friend's family's cabin with our marrieds group. And then my friend E.K. and my goddaughter arrived to stay in this area for awhile.

In May, I was able to get together with E.K. once a week. It was so good for my heart. We saw Spiderman and X-Men, and I spent a fun evening with some beautiful young women while Josh was at a short men's retreat. We celebrated my dad's birthday and Mother's Day. I went to a bridal shower for the now married Y.H. My oldest niece turned seven (!!) and my BCBs and I started reading Harry Potter together. I went to a fun wine night and we went to L.B.'s daughter's second birthday party. We celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday, and went to the grad party of our former pastor's son. Our friends from CO came out that weekend to attend his graduation, so we spent a lot of time with them while they were here. May was also a little scary because my grandma had to have brain surgery.

June brought E.K.'s baby shower and celebrating Father's Day. I also went on a fun girls day out and the last of my hubby's childhood friends (dot35) got married. We also spent the end of June and part of July on a fun trip to Portland and Seattle.

The beginning of July brought our first nephew!! I went to a bridal shower for a dear friend and we watched some fireworks with our friends. We celebrated L.B.'s oldest daughter's birthday and had a birthday dinner for Josh's grandparents. E.K. gave birth to my second nephew and I got to go meet him shortly after they arrived home from the hospital. I also went wine tasting to celebrate a friend's birthday and had some really fun hang outs with various friends. My BCBs and I finished Harry Potter and read The Giver. And we found out our friends K.W. and S.W. were expecting a baby...and that they were moving back here!

In August, we found out that baby W. is a boy!! We went to a taco night fundraiser for our local police squad and I went wine tasting with L.B. and her parents. We saw our friends' band play and spent Josh's dad's birthday at a baseball game with his family. I had a nice visit with my mom and my grandma, and we celebrated K.W.'s birthday. We went to a house warming party for our friends V.M. and K.M., and our Sunday night service ended at church. We saw Guardians of the Galaxy twice, and I had some other fun hang out and wine nights with friends. My BCBs and I finished the Delirium series, read Paper Towns and We Were Liars.

We started September off with a fun day at the beach with friends. I got to celebrate my bestie's birthday and had two fun craft nights with some friends. We celebrated a couple of friends' birthdays and I had a fun night out with my friend M.D. I had a fun girls night and we celebrated my niece's 3rd birthday twice! We also went to a co-ed baby shower, and my BCBs and I read a funny book called Beauty Queens. We also went to see Josh's great grandma to say our goodbyes, and got to see Josh's oldest brother and his family...and meet our nephew!!

In October, we went on a fun getaway with some friends. I did a Scentsy party for a friend and we went to a corn maze with our marrieds group. My mom, sister and I had a fun girls spa day, and I hosted a fall BUNCO night at my house. We went on a fun sushi date night with my sister and her hubby, and to a fun Halloween party that our friend throws every year. We also got a new senior pastor finally!! I had some fun hang outs with friends, and my BCBs and I read an amazing book called The Invention of Wings.

November started off with a small memorial service for Josh's great grandma. I went to S.W.'s baby shower, and went wine tasting with some friends. I went on my annual trip to the pottery painting place with my friend S.S., and I watched my hubby receive an award for his hard work. We had FriendsGiving with some amazing friends, and checked out a local distillery. We went wine tasting with my sister and her husband, and I went to a Christmas craft night. I saw Mockingjay three times, and threw a surprise party for Josh for his 30th birthday. We celebrated Thanksgiving a day early with my family, and then headed out of town for the weekend to spend some time at the beach. My sister-in-law and her family did a special birthday dinner for Josh while we were staying with them. I also read Orphan Train with my BCBs and our youngest niece turned 3!!

And so far this month, we went to our local Christmas parade, and have gone to a couple of Christmas parties. We got all of our shopping and wrapping done early, and really enjoyed decorating the house. I've been listening to Christmas music since November 1st, and we have watched about half of our favorite Christmas movies. We had a fun dinner with family, and I got to see our niece in her Christmas program at her preschool. We have a lot of fun stuff planned in the next couple of weeks to celebrate Christmas with our family and friends. I am looking forward to some time off work, and some time spent surrounded by the people I love.

I am planning to come back and post about some hopes and dreams for 2015 (it's so weird to type that number). Until then, have a wonderful few days before Christmas and soak up all that wonderful time with loved ones. And most importantly, remember Who this season is all about.