Hipster Halloween

We had YL Leadership on Sunday night and it was themed the "Hipster Halloween" which led Matt to wearing skinny jeans, a vested cardigan, golf hat and he shaved his beard into a John Water's skinny mustache. It was a beautiful thing.

Even the kids got in the act.

But Lucy was too hipster to smile.

It was hilarious!

Growing up in Young Life, our kids go to a party pretty much every day.

Quite the life.

Fall Festival Time

I'm not going to inundate you with every single thing that we have gone to this Fall. It would be insane.

But we did go to this little Fall Festival at Lucy's school last weekend and they had a caricature artist there that did the kids faces for FREE! But getting the kids to sit there was another story.

They were hilarious.

Who did you say that he looks like again?

Pretty much the sweetest face ever.

She posed like she had been doing this thing her whole entire life.

The artist laughed so hard at how Lucy just sat there, wide-eyed, hands clasped and couldn't wait to see the final product.

It was so stinking funny.

The paper is bigger than fits in my scanner.

Wanna see em?

Have to come over. I'm holding the pics hostage.

Thought for a Dreary Monday

It's raining here.

The kids didn't want to wake up for school.

I didn't want to wake them up for school.

I think we all need a pick-me-up today.

Not Such A Good Day

Lover Not a Fighter

I've been playing soccer this fall.

It took a lot of convincing to get me to give up on only running and get back on the field. For several reasons.

1) I'm not 18, but 32.

2) I have two children to take care of. I do NOT want an ACL tear, shattered ankle, broken arm etc. to nurse for the next half a year or so because I am playing in a Co-Ed Beer League.

3) I played soccer in college. I don't have a whole lot to prove.

But, I do love playing soccer and since I am not doing YL this year, I have a little bit of space in my schedule to add in one night a week to play.

It has been really fun and life giving.

Until Friday night.

My team was up 1-0 in a game that we really had no business winning. The other team had peppered our goal with 40 yard shots that were coming from rifles and missing. They were getting frustrated.

Late in the second half, I had the ball with one girl to beat before I could take a shot on goal. I made my move and was about to be in the clear when WHAM! I was blindsided from behind. I crumpled on the turf, the referee blew his whistle and my teammates all started yelling.

I popped up immediately but not before I got in my opponents face with a few choice words about how I felt about being taken down from behind.

He got back in my face immediately and in a pretty threatening manner. I was surprised but not fearful. After all, I have a team of men on my team, my husband on the sideline and I have the mistaken impression that nothing bad will ever happen to me.

So I take my pointer finger and lift it towards his face and say, "No! No! No!" Because, I had little else to add to the situation.

Cooler heads prevailed but not before Matt was at mid-field, my team was fired up and we spent the rest of the game in a physical throw-down. There were so many altercations for the rest of the game that it was embarrassing.

I realized it has been about 10 years since I acted that way.

In college, I was a totally different personality on the field and off the field.

I haven't struggled like that while playing this season. Mostly because I think that God has been ACTUALLY changing me into a whole person. But that old person creeped on out because I didn't want to have my ACL torn on a Friday night playing against another restaurant team. I totally lost my cool.

But I have laughed really hard at myself because of how ridiculous I must have look yelling at a grown man in the middle of a soccer field.

When am I ever going to grow up?

Vacation Arguments

Remember when you were a kid (or maybe this was just me) and the stress of getting out of town on a vacation sent everyone into a tizzy and before you knew it your parents were arguing over the most insane thing? [except my mom just let me know that this never ever happened in our house. Ever. Sorry Mom. I have no idea where I got that.]

Like say, bikes being attached into a roof rack? Just hypothetically speaking of course.

Or...that is exactly what happened to us as we left town last Friday.

I loaded everything into car, scurrying around trying to get us ready to go the MINUTE that Asher got off the school bus.
I secured the bikes on the roof rack. Matt arrived, we got in the car and landed at the bus stop.
He got out of the car and "double-checked" the bikes.

They weren't secure enough to his liking. So he asked me how the roof rack 1) worked 2) if we had bungee cords to further attach the bikes 3) was I sure that the bikes were secure.

I confirmed #1 & 3 and once Asher was in the car, we argued about how Matt didn't "trust" my abilities to get us together for trip/bikes/life for the next hour or so.

Awesome.

We arrived at Matt's parents house no worse for the wear, just slightly more exhausted from effort of that conversation and we went out dinner.
We came back, happy as clams, listening to the ipod and jamming out as a family.

Matt's parents weren't there and this led Matt to pulling directly INTO the carport.
WITH THE BIKES ATTACHED.

CRUUUUUUNNNNNCCCCHHHH.

He looked at me.
I looked at him.
I mentally said to myself "DO NOT GET MAD. This was an ACCIDENT. BE COOL."

He said to me, "Just tell me what it looks like," as he pulled open the sunroof.
I got out of the car and:
His seat post was sheared off.

The house was undamaged. The car was not damaged. The roof rack was intact.

And the bikes?

Still secure.

We laughed. The next morning. Or so.

Shellie-Bration II

My sister did take some pictures and had shirts made to celebrate the "Shellie-Bration" weekend.

Enjoy the beauty of our family!

The siblings are KILLING it.

The Lamb/Iossa side.

The whole fam-damily.

It was a great weekend at Amelia Island Plantation.

Gorgeous weather, delicious food and the kids had a blast.

What more can you ask for?

Shellie-Bration

This past weekend, we went to Amelia Island, Florida for a weekend getaway with my sister and her family, her in-laws, sister-in-law, my parents and my brother in order to celebrate the beautiful life that my sister has lived.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home this one time in my life. So there's nothing to see here but amazing pictures of my sister. :)

I chose to celebrate her by giving her a series of gifts. One of them was particularly fitting for us. American Top 40 (hosted by Casey Kasem) was launched in July of 1970 and Shellie was born in November of 1970. So I made a two-disc set of the #1 song from the last 40 years. It was fun to do and it is like reliving my childhood with my sister while listening to it!

This is one of Shellie's favorite pictures.

If my house gets firebombed, you know why.

Aww my wedding day!

Sheridan applying my makeup!

1) 1970: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough-Diana Ross

2) 1971: Joy to the World-Three Dog Night

3) 1972: Song Sung Blue-Neil Diamond

4) 1973: Bad Bad Leroy Brown-Jim Croce

5) 1974: Hooked on a Feeling-Blue Swede

6) 1975: Jive Talkin-Bee Gees

7) 1976: Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart-Elton John/KikiDee

8) 1977: You Light Up My Life-Debbie Boone

9) 1978: Night Fever-BeeGees

10) 1979: Reunited-Peaches and Herb

11) 1980: Crazy Little Thing Called Love-Queen

12) 1981: Physical-Olivia Newton John

13) 1982: I Love Rock and Roll-Joan Jett

14) 1983: Billie Jean-Michael Jackson

15) 1984: Wake Me Up Before You Go Go-Wham

16) 1985: Like A Virgin-Madonna

17) 1986: Stuck With You-Huey Lewis and the News

18) 1987: I Wanna Dance With Somebody-Whitney Houston

19) 1988: Together Forever-Rick Astley

20) 1989: Straight Up-Paula Abdul

21) 1990: Nothing Compares 2 U-Sinead O’Connor

Disc 2

19 1) 1991: Everything I do-Bryan Adams

2) 1 2) 1992: Baby Got Back- Sir Mix A Lot

3) 1 3) 1993: I Will Always Love You-Whitney Houston

4) 1 4) 1994: I’ll Make Love to You-Boys II Men

5) 1 5) 1995: Waterfalls-TLC

6) 1 6) 1996: One Sweet Day-Mariah Carey

7) 1 7) 1997: Wannabe-Spice Girls

8) 1 8) 1998: Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing-Aerosmith

9) 1 9) 1999: Livin’ La Vida Loca-Ricky Martin

10) 2000: Independent Women-Destiny’s Child

11) 2001: Fallin’-Alicia Keys

12) 2002: Dilemma: Kelly Rowland & Nelly

13) 2003: Crazy in Love: Beyonce & Jay Z

14) 2004: Yeah!-Usher

15) 2005: Since You Been Gone-Kelly Clarkson

16) 2006: SexyBack-Justin Timberlake

17) 2007: No One-Alicia Keys

18) 2008: Single Ladies: Beyonce

2009: Poker Face: Lady Gaga

Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

I am the luckiest sister in the world to have a sister like her!

Running on Ice

Last night while driving, I was listening to a song that I hadn't heard since college:

Falling Down by Vertical Horizon.

And I remember every single word to this song because it meant so much to me. And it still does. The words ring true because of these lines:

Hating, lying to myself
I'm tired of telling myself it's OK
To be this tired
Just sick and tired of the turns the world takes
And the people that it makes us be
And lately it appears to me that

And I'm falling
Falling down
Falling
Falling down

But the big BIG time lines in this song that really got me in college and get me now are these:

Where does the time go
Spinning my wheels
Standing still
It's like running on ice
I only gain a little distance when I fall

I only gain a little distance when I fall.

Sometimes life can feel like that. Just a hamster on a wheel and you aren't making forward motion. Except when you take a risk and it doesn't turn out like you plan, you aren't happy with it and you learn a "life lesson." Is it worth it? Yes. Does it hurt to fall? Every time.

Can you avoid the pain, hurt and exhaustion and yet still get the joy of "distance"? I doubt it.