Thursday, March 1st our baby boy, Kevin, turns 23!!! I can't believe it. I'm sad that he's all the way in Omaha, Nebraska and we can't be with him in person to wish him a happy birthday.

It would be great if a bunch of his family and friends called him to wish him a happy birthday (hint, hint) or feel free to go to his blog and greet him there.

Unfortunately, we have a big event at work tomorrow through Sunday, so I don't have time right now to write about him, but will do more when I get back. For now, I'll provide a few cute photos of him at Halloween and other times.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVO-WEVO, KEVDOG, KEV, KEVIN!!!

We love you!

Love those musicians!!

I took some pics the other night of Terry, Randy Thompson and Rand Mozingo for an upcoming gig they're doing for Leadership Catalyst. We want to post a "band" photo for them at the event.

The first batch I took were fun, but all of them had something wrong...at least one of the three had eyes closed, mouth open, funny looks, etc. This last batch (above) was more posed, but turned out better overall. Let me know which of these you like the best. I need to decide which one to use for the "marquee"

Here's one of my favorites below from the first set. I LOVE Rand's laughing face!!

Southwest Gardner in Phoenix just released their new class list for spring. I'd love to go to the Mosaic Birdbath class... This picture isn't from the class, but just my vision of what it might look like, based on their description.

They're also offering a 5-day tour of gardens in Southern California. If you're an avid gardner or even a photographer, this is a dream tour. I've been to a few of the spots that they mention, like the Huntington Library and the Getty Villa in Malibu (before it was remodeled).

The image below is one I took of the Japanese Gardens at the Huntington Library a few years ago. They are both amazing places to enjoy God's creation., some magnificent artwork and beautiful Southern Cal. If the other locations are anything like those two, the tour could be breath-taking.

Open Door Fellowship 24/7 Prayer continued...
19th Avenue, north of Northern Ave., Phoenix AZ

I had a chance to visit the church again to take some "action" shots of people participating and involved at the prayer stations this week. It's an amazing thing to feel the love of God and the love of those who invested their time, gifts, talents, heart and soul into preparation of the various stations for this week. It's immediately evident the minute you walk through the door.

Here you'll see just a taste of the ways people are worshipping the Lord and discovering new ways to express their hearts to him. Open the pics up to get the full effect.

It's well worth the trip if you have any time between now and Saturday night. Remember, they're open 24 hours a day for this week and the Sunday morning worship services will be all about stories of how God met us during the prayer time.

24/7 Prayer at Open Door Fellowship, Phoenix













Here are some pics with info about our 24/7 prayer week that started this past Sunday and goes until next Sunday. I was privileged to have the chance to go in while they were setting up the prayers stations to take pictures. There are some really awesome projects where people from our church invested a great amount of time, energy and love.

The tree has dozens of leaves with items to pray about for our teenagers. There are many more, but this is all I have time to post now. Look at them closely for more information.

Valentine's Day continued...

These are the flowers that Terry sent me for Valentine's Day. I just LOVE them! I was trying to capture the bench in the background of the photo too. And the key and heart hanging from the vase are so cool. The key is actually metal! I'm not sure what I'll do with them when the flowers are gone...maybe hang them in my scrapping room for inspiration.

I have so much more to blog about. We went to the Scottsdale Culinary Institute's L'Ecole restaurant for dinner on Friday night and I have pics of the food. I also stopped by the Scottsdale 5th Avenue Fine Art & Wine Festival on Saturday and have some pics from there as well. I hope to post more later and I'm off tomorrow so maybe I'll have time then! (yahoo!)

Valentines Day...

It's always a nice day for me. Terry's so sweet to always do something special. This year I was greeted with a beautiful card when I woke up. I was also the only one in my office to have flowers delivered. I'll have to take a picture of them tomorrow. They smell amazing! There's roses and tulips and other flowers that I can't remember right now. The red vase had a heart and key hanging from it. He gave me the "key to his heart". Isn't that sweet?

When I got home tonight, there was another card with 9 big chocolate covered strawberries...mmmmm. We don't usually go out ON Valentines Day because neither of us like to fight the crowds, so we made dinner at home. We had huge T-bone steaks, king crab legs, grilled red peppers and snap peas, pretzel bread and a nice glass of Red Truck California Syrah (I liked the label). It was all delicious! I only ate about 3 bites of my steak because there was so much other food. I'll have it another day. Besides, king crab is my absolute favorite. I don't have it often because its so expensive, but I bought this on sale a while ago and had it in the freezer, so what better time to have it than Valentine's Day.

Online I found a super simple way to cook the crab. I put the legs in a big ziploc bag with a wet paper towel, sealed it up and cooked it in the microwave for a few minutes. It comes out perfectly! I also picked up the pretzel bread at Trader Joe's today. I discovered it when I was in Germany a few years ago and it's so tasty. If you've never had it, give it a try sometime. It kind of tastes like a soft pretzel but fluffier and without the salt.

Well, Blogger isn't letting me upload the pics of the food, so I'll have to try that tomorrow.

Oh, and Friday night we're going out to dinner at L'Ecole, at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute to continue our Valentine's celebration. I've heard it's really fun. The students are the chefs in training and they make delicious fancy dishes. They come out and talk with you all about what you're eating and it's supposed to be quite an experience. I'll let you know...I may take my camera if it's not too weird for the people around us.

Scrapping Room:

As you may have noticed, my posting has slowed down. This seems to happen when I'm gearing up for a big event at work. We have a 4 day retreat coming up with 35 couples coming March 1.

I'm coordinating the event so there's lots still to do. So I'll be a bit distracted over the next few weeks.

I did want to show everyone a sneak peek of my scrapping room that I'm setting up. The first picture is before (well it wasn't really that bad. I embellished a little, but you get the idea).

The next picture is about halfway there. I love all the fun Ikea organizers on the wall and am having fun filling them up. I found the clear topped tins online. I'll post later where I got them...great prices!

I'm about 3/4 of the way done now, hoping to finish this weekend, then I'll post the final product. I'm very excited! There's even enough room to set up a 2nd table if someone comes over to scrap with me.

Hi all,

Check out Antje's 6 unusual things. She is the wife of one of my previous bosses (Uli) in California and is so sweet and talented. She's from Germany, but has lived in So Cal for about 6 - 8 years...I can't remember how long...

I remember when she first came that she could barely speak English, but is doing great now!

I hope to see her again someday soon.

So my friends and I were considering the possibility of attending the Creative Escape Scrapping Retreat here in Phoenix in September. Not sure if we would have made it, since it's $599 per person without the hotel. BUT it doesn't matter anyway because, according to the website, the registrations sold out in less than 2 minutes!!! It's a good thing we didn't have our hearts set on it ladies.

Well, I just sent them an email to see if they need any volunteers to help with the event...thought it might be fun and a way to sit in on some of the classes. If I get any details, I'll definitely pass it on to our scrapping group because all of you would be awesome there!

If any of you see any announcements looking for volunteers (maybe on Heidi or someone's web site or in magazines) let me know. I think it might be a good foot in the door to a new career path.

6 Unusual Things about me...

I did my part on this a few days ago...now Lisa, Erin, Antje, and Amy - you're tagged. Now you have to write 6 unusual things about yourself and tag four other people. Amy, we'll just keep tagging you until you breakdown and do it...

Have fun!

So get ready - next year the Super Bowl and the FBR Open will both be in the Phoenix area in the same week!

Talk about a crazy party city!

At least the Super Bowl will be in Glendale at the University of Phoenix stadium and the FBR is in Scottsdale. I wouldn't want to work at the airport or rental car companies that week. Anyone up for an out of town trip in the first week of February 2008 or should we try to get tickets for the game?

To Sir with Love...

I remember the first time I saw the movie "To Sir With Love". It came out in 1967 so I would have been 9 years old.

I was mesmerized by Sidney Poitier. He was so handsome, articulate, wise and kind. It was a beautiful touching movie. If you've never seen it, get it and watch it. It will make you cry. Sidney (can I call him Sidney?) has had an amazing film career. In June 2006, the AFI released its list of the 100 Most Inspiring Movies. Poitier was the only actor to have five of his films appear on the list (The Defiant Ones, A Raisin in the Sun, Lilies of the Field, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night).

Just to give you an idea how cool he is, Poitier was appointed a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) in 1974.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say the Sidney Poitier recently released an autobiography which was chosen for Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. I really want to get it and read it. He is so awesome!

Six Unusual Things About Me:

O.k., Linda tagged me so here goes. Mine are not nearly as funny as hers, but then I'm not nearly as funny as she is either.

In thinking about these 6 things, I realize what a boring life I've led. Nothing really dramatic or exciting...just always plugging along. Even when we asked my mom to tell stories about each of her kids, she couldn't come up with anything very interesting for me...just that I was always a good kid and never got into much trouble. Of course, if you knew my family, that's UNUSUAL !!! So I guess you can say that I'm the white sheep among mostly black sheep (in some ways). Not that I'm perfect in any way, just very different from the rest of my 5 siblings. (I must say that I'm thankful for God's hand on my life in protecting me from a lot of pain in that way.)

1. I don't like foods with unusual textures. For example; I don't like mushrooms because they remind me of earlobes (don't ask). I don't like oysters or clams or mussels because they're too slimy or rubbery. I don't mind the taste of mushrooms or clams, and will eat things with them in it. I just don't like big chunks because then I feel the texture.

2. I go back to bed in the morning after I take a shower. It started when my hair was really long and I would take a shower, then lay down for a few minutes with a towel on my head. I did it so my hair would dry a little to save time in blow-drying. Now my hair's shorter and there's no real need to do it, I just enjoy climbing back into my cozy bed and snoozing for 20 minutes or so before I get up for the day.

3. I've never had a broken bone or stitches for any reason other than when I got my tonsils out (when I was 13) and when I had my children. It probably goes back to that boring life I lead or I'd like to think it's because I'm careful and wise and all that.

4. I grew up in a family of 8 in a very small (probably 1000 square feet) house with one bathroom and 3 small bedrooms. My parents slept in the living room, with a sliding door to close it off at night. We had indoor/outdoor carpeting in the living room, and my mom painted the floors in the rest of the house. We didn't have closets or doors in the two bedrooms upstairs because my dad never got around to putting them in. We had one small wall off the kitchen where the phone was hanging, where we actually wrote down people's phone numbers and names ON THE WALL. I always knew when we were low on money when my mom would serve us powdered milk. Looking back at how we survived back then, it reminds me of how blessed we are with so many material things now. Much more than we really need. The good thing is that my mom never let us believe that we were poor or lacking in anything, so I never realized that we were different from anyone else. She always loved and encouraged us in everything we did.

5. When I was young my parents didn't wrap our Christmas presents (due to lack of time and privacy). They just set them out in the living room on Christmas eve after we went to bed, in groups according to which child they were for. When I got old enough to learn how to wrap, I would wrap everyone's presents, except my own and my mom would wrap those. It was so much better to keep the suspense for a little longer and take time to unwrap things. Amazing that I knew what everyone else was getting, but don't remember them ever asking me or me telling them what was coming.

6. Birthdays are a big deal to me. Not that I have to get big gifts or anything, just a card or a reminder that someone remembered that the day is special is good. It's probably because of growing up in a big family and the fact that my sister's birthday is the day after mine. She was born July 8, 1957 and I was born 1 year later, but 5 minutes before midnight on July 7, 1958. My mom always said that I refused to be born on her birthday. AMEN! Unfortunately, I had to share birthdays with her all the time anyway. My parents couldn't afford two separate parties, so we always had to celebrate together when we were young.

So that's the 6 that I came up with. Probably not really much about me now, but...there it is.

Gotta get to work...I'll figure out who I'll tag later.

Just realized that I never posted that my mom came home and is doing very well! Thanks all for your prayers.

I'm working on my 6 unusual things...I'm finding that I'm not that unusual.