the crazier life gets, the less time there is to blog and the more there is to blog about!

hello all!  once again, i’m sorry it’s been so long since i’ve updated.  life has been crazy, but great the past few months and somehow blogging about it all has fallen completely off my radar screen!  i will update with Project 365 pics soon, but for now, i’ll just give you a brief update:

my sisters were here for a week to explore vancouver and celebrate Thanksgiving with me.  we packed as much as we possibly could into a week and had an absolute blast.  i hadn’t seen either of them since the beginning of this year, so it was great to be reunited!  i’m already looking forward to my trip to Ohio in a few weeks.  it will be so good to have our family all together for a bit!

our second group of ULI participants are doing well.  this round has not been without its hiccups, but it has been really good.  i’ve enjoyed getting to know our TCKs and their parents, and i am constantly reminded of how blessed i am to work with the ULI team and be a part of all of this.  God is so good.

i was recently invited to an imb retreat in Istanbul this spring.  having never traveled outside of the americas, i am really excited!  i don’t know many details yet, but will try to remember to keep you posted.

i’ll leave you with a few of my favorite pics from last week with my sisters.  hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and are enjoying the Christmas season!

late night, all you can eat, sushi after church sunday night:

in stanley park on monday:

cold and wet, with my friend Candice, downtown monday afternoon:

at squamish/shannon falls on the way to whistler on tuesday:

in the olympic store in whistler on tuesday:

with the olympic mascots:

mal and i with the pumpkin cheesecake on thursday:

em and i with an unamused izzy on friday while putting up christmas decorations:

an exhausted izzy on friday night:

people magazine

i know it’s been forever since i last blogged and that i owe you all a serious catch-up post, and i promise it’s coming sometime in the next few weeks, but first, i just had to tell you some exciting news.  as some of you know, one of my best friends ever, mrs. adrian hitt, is a fantastically (is that even a word?  wordpress says it is) talented dog and child photographer in nashville, tn.  several months ago she had the opportunity to photograph Emmylou Harris and her photos were recently published in an edition of people magazine’s country special!  HERE is the link to her blog post with the photos.  i am so very excited for her and so proud to call her my friend!  way to go adrian!

and, because i just couldn’t resist, here’s a pic of adrian and i when she visited me in Guadalajara last year:

off to find me a copy of people’s country edition…

FINALLY…an update!

yikes.  somehow time REALLY got away from me this summer.  sorry it’s taken me so long to finally update.  i lost my camera battery charger, so that’s complicated things a bit as well.  i’ve had to resort to using photobooth on my computer, so it’s mainly been self portraits for a couple weeks now.  oh well.  better than nothing, right?  i’m working on getting a new charger….  anyway, here’s the last 2 1/2 months at a glance!

quick update

hello blog world.  i know it’s been a ridiculously long time since i’ve updated, but it has been a busy month or so!  i’m still taking a picture every day but haven’t had the time to upload and post them just yet.  my mom’s coming in tonight and will be here until the end of the month, so look for a REALLY long update sometime at the beginning of august.  hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer!

go get something to drink, this is going to be a long post!

alrighty folks, it’s been a few weeks (sorry about that!), so we’ve got a bit of catching up to do!  sorry for the delay.  here we go:

may 17 – i got some new sandals and am super excited.  so glad that sandal weather is finally here!

may 18 – i also got this fun new jacket.  i love bright colors!  (sorry, i couldn’t figure out how to rotate the pic once i uploaded and forgot to do it before!)

may 19 – i hosted our team meeting this morning and made monkey bread.  this was what was left.  it was a HUGE hit!

may 20 – izzy loves her new bone so much she sleeps on it!

may 22 – sweet potato fries are quickly becoming one of my new favorite foods!

may 24 – izzy made her first trip to the beach!  one of my new friends from the dog park asked if i wanted to go with her and her dog and, of course, i said yes!

may 25 – we’ve been having school in a church basement (the adults were having their sessions upstairs) and the kids have been a bit crazy, so i taught them jumping jacks.  they love it!

may 26 – i met these ladies at the dog park and we quickly became friends.  tonight we went to a pizza place that serves pretty good tacos (it’s owned by mexicans).  i loved it!

may 27 – we had a big cookout with our participants to celebrate all that God has done since they arrived.

may 28 – we took a field trip to the IMAX theater.  it was so much fun!

may 29 – back to the beach (a different one) with my friend, jeanne, and her dog, Goguma (Korean for sweet potato).

may 30 – jeanne lives in my building and loaned me a couple of eggs.  i know it might sound silly, but i am so thankful for a close friend that i can ask for an egg at 10:00 at night!

may 31 – jeanne made some korean dishes for me and the other “dog park ladies” (Lalaine and Anita) and we went to Lalaine’s house to eat.  it was my first time to try squid.  i doubt i’ll try it again by choice!

june 1 – the kids were excited to start on their “graffiti wall” at the resource center

june 2 – “please mom, can we go to the park??”

june 3 – it’s SO HOT this week!  i made some iced coffee and it really hit the spot!

june 4 – this was taken a few minutes after 10 pm.  do you see how bright it still is??  the days are getting verrrrry looooong!  it’s getting light at 4:30 am and dark after 10 pm!

june 5 – i headed out with my church to Vancouver Island for the weekend to help get a camp ready for the summer.  it was a 2 hour ferry ride, then a 45 min. bus ride and worth every minute!

june 6 – Candice and Nastenka after spending the day staining a new building.  it was a long day of hard work, but lots of fun!

june 7 – if you click on the picture, you should be able to see them better, but there are two bald eagles soaring over the camp.  it was a great way to end our time there.  i also got to see dolphins and seals on the ferry ride back!

june 8 – izzy is a crazy sleeper

june 9 – Goguma spend the evening with us.  izzy didn’t mind!

june 10 – i made a lemon cake for our team dinner.  it was a big hit!

june 11 – izzy has started hiding out in my closet while i get ready in the mornings.  crazy dog!  (please ignore the mess on the floor!)

june 12 – i took the remains of the lemon cake to the dog park ladies.  they loved it!  this is all that was left!

hopefully it won’t be quite as long before i update again, but you know how that goes.  thanks for looking!  have a fabulous weekend!

look! i’m posting and it’s only been a week!

i’m up to date on my pics and had them all loaded onto my computer from my camera, so i figured i’d go ahead and get them posted here.  i’ve honestly wondered if anyone really even ever looked at these, but i’ve heard from at least a small handful of you that you do, so i’ll keep posting them here.    on to the past week….

sunday – i saw this sign from the bus.  i have no idea what it was advertising, but the MEXICO stood out.  i’ve really been missing mexico lately.  the past 6 months have been crazy, but the dust has finally settled and i think i’m just now having a chance to really miss the life i had there.

monday – i LOVE tulips and have really been enjoying these that i picked up over the weekend.

tuesday – i don’t think i’ll every quit laughing at izzy’s crazy sleeping positions!

wednesday – we took our first field trip!  it only took one train, one boat, one bus and some (read: a lot!) of walking/hiking to get there, but we had a great time at the salmon hatchery and all the kids seemed to enjoy it!

thursday – i tried a new recipe from Pioneer Woman Cooks (i don’t have the exact link, but you should totally google her if you’re not familiar with her site) for some kind of lemony-creamy pasta.  it turned out pretty good and even looked kinda pretty!  (what can i say, i’m easily amused)

friday – some of the tulips were drooping, so i cut them off and stuck them in little vases on my windowsill.  i love them!

saturday – i’ve been meaning to make these little things for my bathroom wall for awhile and finally got around to doing it today.  i used some of my digital scrapbooking stuff and printed the pages out for some frames i bought awhile ago.  i really like how they turned out!

welp, that’s all folks.  hope you’re all doing well!

simple pleasures

this is something i really should do more often, but tonight i thought of some of the little things that made me smile this afternoon/evening:

• the sun coming out as i walked home this afternoon, after a long rainy day
• showing up at the empty dog park and quickly being joined by some of our dog friends
• a woman i’d never met walking a dog i knew, entering the dog park and immediately saying “oh, is this Izzy?  i’ve heard so much about her!”
• an email from a friend thanking me for a card and telling me that it arrived at the perfect time
• freshly painted toenails
• turning my ipod on to an old playlist set to random and hearing two of my favorite songs in a row, followed by a “the circle of life” at full volume (added by my crazy sister, mallory)
• a lovely bubble bath
• a hot cup of vanilla roobios tea, warm socks and a sleeping puppy on my lap

what made you smile today?

this is ridiculous…

ok, so it’s officially been 4 stinkin weeks since i updates.  sorry about that!  life has been busy, but good.  hope you’re ready for some pictures, because i’ve got quite a few!  i’m not sure what’s up with the random, weird sizing, but uploading all 27 pictures and inserting them one by one took long enough as it is and i really don’t want to do it again, so oh well.  they are in order from April 12-today.  i’ve added a little bit of commentary, but not as much as usual.  enjoy!

got to see one of our families’ apartments…on the 27th floor!

all the handprints on our tree now

i’m officially in love with this tree.  i’ve never seen it before, but it’s AMAZING!

got a haircut

housesitting for Marsha – she doesn’t drink coffee, so i made a few stops at starbucks on the way to school that week!

this isn’t a great picture, but i am continually amazed at how beautiful the mountains are!

got izzy some new bowls.

finally got some plants for the house!

finally got rid of the terrible roots that were showing in my hair!

made yummy cupcakes for school

IZZY’S HERE!!

she’s settling in great!

cuddly as always!

went out to Squamish to see some gorgeous waterfalls.  izzy had so much fun playing in the streams!

she’s not spoiled at all…

the kids made a cute Thank You sign for the team that re-did the resource center

she loves sitting out on the balcony and watching everything

finally got to check out stanley park!

*imagine a cute picture of the kids with their thank you sign here*  (not posted for security reasons)

happened upon the Vancouver Film Studios while trying to find Walmart one afternoon.  i can’t even tell you how many random movie sets we’ve happened upon since i’ve been here.  it’s crazy!

izzy and i checked out the grand opening party of the dog park near my house (i forgot my camera, so i had to take this pic from my balcony after we got home)

i spent the morning passing out water at the Vancouver Marathon.

the cherry blossom trees are starting to drop their petals and everything is covered in pink!  izzy loves stickng her face in the petals.

first trip to a canadian vet.  not sure what happened, but izzy picked up an eye infection somewhere.  she’s looking better already!

my cousin sent me this amazing package the other day.  it was a complete surprise and so much fun!!

my favorite scrapbooking site (ScrapMatters) used my gallery for a challenge.  i was pretty excited!  (you can read more about it here)

i’ve definitely gotten *old* – i rarely stay up past 10:30 these days, but made an exception tonight.  i had dinner with some friends and wound up hanging out and not getting home until 11:30!  it’s a good thing i had some caffeine to keep me awake!

izzy and i have made several trips to the dog park recently and spent quite a bit of time there again today.  she loves playing with the other dogs!

there ya go folks!  the past 4 weeks in a nutshell.  click on the pics if you want to see them larger.  hope you’re all doing well!

saturday night update

sunday – after church, a training session for some of our volunteers, a few errands and catching up with a friend, i watched the ACM awards on tv.  normally i’m not a big fan of awards shows, but this one was really fun!  there were lots of great performances and fun music that had me dancing around my apartment as i worked on various things while watching.  good times.   and a good thing i live alone. 

monday – patti and i worked in the resource center most of the day.  unfortunately, as we tried to move this desk, i lost my grip and dropped it on my foot.  it’s not too sore now, but is still a lovely shade of yellow/blue/purple/green/brown!

tuesday – after another day of working in the resource room, i caught this view from my balcony.  what a beautiful way to end the day!

wednesday – ready or not, here they come!  we spent the day at the airport waiting for all of our participants to arrive.  hard to believe this day is actually here.

thursday – patti and i spent the day, once again, at the resource center.  we finished the “big stuff” and then moved on to the planning.  these gorgeous cherry blossoms are at the corner between my place and the resource center.  aren’t they wonderful?  they are in bloom all over the city and range from white to dark pink.  i just love them!

friday – today was our orientation session.  it was a long, but good day!

saturday – everything at the resource center is ready to go for our first day on Monday!

weekly update

it seems this blog has morphed into a weekly [photo] update.   anyone have a problem with that?  good.  i didn’t think so. 

sunday – i went to church downtown and passed a movie set on the way.  they were taking everything down, so we didnt’ see anything too exciting.

monday – we kicked off our week of moving/setting up furniture in all of the apartments.  we got really good with the IKEA furniture by the end of the week!

tuesday – we continued setting up furniture.  and setting up an entire apartment of IKEA stuff really generates a lot of cardboard.  a couple of the places didn’t have room for all of it, so we had to take it with us and unload it in the dumpsters at our own places

wednesday – patti and i took a day off from the furniture set up and worked on organizing the resource center.  we were both glad to finally get in there and start getting set up.

thursday – before working on setting up an apartment, i went out to the airport and took public transportation back to make sure there wasn’t anything we didn’t know about before our partcipants do it on wednesday.  i went at roughly the same time they’ll be going and even took a backpack and carry-on suitcase.  (this is a picture of the train station i got on at)

friday – we finished the last apartment!  woohoo!!  we would not have made it through the past few weeks without these two though.  meet bobby and reagan.  they’re from texas and are old friends of bill and frankie who came up for 3 weeks to help us with anything and everything.  they were such a blessing.

saturday – i headed over to the resource center this afternoon to paint a tree.  we plan to have the kids from each group of participants put their handprints on it.  i think it turned out ok and can’t wait to watch it “grow.”

it’s definitely been a busy few weeks, but very blessed.  the Lord has worked out all the details and allowed us to get more done than we could have ever imagined!