Dear November, I am so glad you are over!

Phew. I can breathe again! November was an insane month for us at work. December will be busy, but I am so glad November is over.

I don't have much to say, except that I have totally dropped the ball on a Christmas countdown this year. So instead I will let you see some pictures of the Houston snow! Enjoy!



(If the pictures are big enough, you can see how hard it was snowing when I took these.)

August 8, 2002 was a looooong time ago.

The other night, Patrick and said something about Meghan (his sister) being too young for something. And I said 'Well you were just a year older than her when we started dating.' Holy cow... she's in 10th grade. So actually, he was less than a year older than her. It was the summer after 10th grade for him (11th for me) when we started dating the first time. August 8, 2002. It didn't last very long the first time, and a year later we started dating again, August 9, 2003. That one lasted. (For the most part... there were certainly some ups and downs.) Can you believe that? 2002. It seems like so long ago. And it was... we're certainly completely different people today than we were 7 years ago. Hopefully everyone is somewhat different than they were at 16. Care to hear the story? Well, ok!

(This memory of our conversation a couple days ago and now the blog post was inspired by Courtney's post, and you should really read hers because it's better written and a slightly more grown-up story. :-) )

In May/June of 2002, I had recently broken up with someone I had been dating for a long time. (Yeah, I was 17. I don't strongly recommend having dated someone for a few years when you're 17. At least not the way I did it... it was a little too intense for my age and I knew the whole time it wasn't someone I should marry.) Anyway, it was sort of a weird time for me after we broke up because I was so used to being around that person all the time, SO I made what turned out to be a fantastic decision. I started spending every waking moment at church. Turns out, Patrick decided that summer to do the same. Which meant we spent every waking moment together. At first it was nothing... we just happened to both be up there, with mutual friends, spending a lot of unplanned time together. Then, we started doing things together, just the two of us, and by the end of the summer it had sort of turned into dating. (I'll let you in on a little secret... dating for us didn't mean much at that time. We went shopping together for some nice clothes we needed for a student leadership trip we were going on together, etc. But we started CALLING it dating, so it counts.)

I can't skip telling this story as I recall the first times we did stuff just the two of us. We were on the aforementioned shopping trip. It was raining. Patrick locked his keys in his car. (Managed to grab his palm pilot though. He loved that thing back then.) He called his mom to see if she would bring him an extra set of keys. (He drove a white Saturn at the time... it wasn't his favorite. Looking back it wasn't a bad car at all. Mine was. Anyway, that's a different story.) She just happened to be at the mall also, and so she met up with us to do some shopping. He was not at all excited she was doing this, just for the record. It was our first "date." :-) I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing... you'll see why. So she met up with us, and we went into a department store to look at dress pants for him. He went in and tried some on and came back, out, and she sort of pulled on the waistband and said 'Is there enough room in the crotch?' Ohhh it was so funny. I thought he would die of embarrassment. There are a string of embarrassing stories regarding our first initial 'dates' but I will spare him the rest of them. And yes, I did check with him before sharing that with the blogosphere.

I want to make it known that he was a perfect gentleman the entire time. He was incredibly sweet, always opening doors and getting me little gifts. If we got to one of our houses and our parents weren't home, he wouldn't even go inside. Isn't that sweet? Very un-sixteen-year-old-boy-like. He has said that it's very strange to think that we both, unknowingly, went on our last 'first' date at 17 years old. Weird that a decision that we made SO young would impact our lives so far down the road. But it's been good.

And on top of being a fantastic 16 year old boyfriend, he's an even better husband. I am a very, very lucky girl.

Patrick's Pie Shop

(The babies were gingerbread men to go with the theme. Is that amazing or what? And do you see the CUTEST little hot dog ever?!)



Yeah. We have the best small group. Of all time.

Ramblings

Well the holiday season is upon us and you know what that means... our weekends are filling up rapidly.

This has been another crazy weekend. We went to the Derek Webb concert last night. I should warn you, since graduating from college, my days of staying up past midnight are pretty much over. I realize that makes me sound lame and old... so be it. The website said that the doors opened at 7 and the concert started at 8. Wellllll not so much. By the time we went to Denny's after the concert, we got home around 2 am. I won't be a downer, as I am a fan of Derek Webb and I do think he did a good job, but from now on I will probably limit myself to somewhat earlier/more low key concerts so as not to put a damper on Patrick's love of late night concerts and U2-esque fans. But anyway, I am not good at staying on topic here.

So we had Derek Webb late into the night and then a very full day today. Have I mentioned that I LOVE babies? (That belong to others.) Cuz I do. And I got to hold Justus tonight, who is such a stud. And Patrick is working hard on his Halloween costume/set up for Trunk or Treat. For those of you in the blog world and not here in our daily lives in person, I will go ahead and leave you in suspense of exactly what he's doing. Let's just say, in true Patrick fashion, it will be over the top. We also have started looking at houses (well in advance, no moves for us in the immediate future). Would you like to know where? I bet you would! I'll save that for another day also. Mostly because no decisions have been made.

Ok well that's enough non-information for one day. Tomorrow promises to be yet another insane day at work, so I need to go get some sleep here pretty soon.

Hope all is well with all of you!!

What ends world hunger? Llamas do.

Reason number 32849 why I like being married:

(Conversation had on the phone with Patrick when I came home for lunch today.)

Me: You got a Christmas magazine from Heifer International in the mail today.
Patrick: Who?
Me: Heifer International. Apparently you could end world hunger.
Patrick: Oh yeah? How?
Me: Well, for one, you could buy a llama.
Patrick: Seriously? A llama?
Me: Yep. For $150. Or you could buy (get this) a share of llama for $20.
Patrick: I would never buy a share of llama. Only a whole llama.
Me: But that's not the only option. You could also purchase honeybees for $30 or a goat, or sheep, etc.
Patrick: Nope. My heart's set on the llama.

And that's my life, folks. In all seriousness, we will be purchasing a llama for those in need in Latin America.

By the way, the conversation started with my attempt to discuss purchasing Christmas gifts that we need to buy a little earlier this year so we can spread out our spending a little bit. We never got past the llamas.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week!

Caleb Elijah Greene

I'm a little late... but here's the latest. Sweet Caleb. Seriously. 4 baby boys. I love them all!

My life is full of sweet baby boys!!

Doesn't the mommy look fabulous?! What a sweet happy family!

Justus Cade Loucks.

8 lb 9 oz.

another (not quite so) little man!

Welcome to the world Ryan Thomas Menger!

He's a cute little chunky thing isn't he?!

Congratulations Mengers!!

Today I wait...

... in great suspense for Ryan Thomas Menger to enter the world. I have been checking their blog a little more than I probably should!

Can't wait!

flu season scares the crap out of me.

Not because I have an irrational fear of sickness. Which, I do. But not of flu-like sickness. Of stomach-virus-like sickness.

Nope. The reason that I fear flu season is VERY rational... I have had the flu. Many people claim to have had the flu. They will call the common cold 'the flu.' Oh how very wrong they are. I got the flu last January (2008) and I have never, ever been so sick in my life.

Sidenote: Elijah was visiting College Station, where Patrick was living at the time, and so my sweet fiance couldn't tear himself away from his beloved city to come to Houston and tend to the flu. :-) No hard feelings. I believe he was finding out, that particular weekend, that his friends planned to take him to the Grand Canyon. And lets be honest, that's more fun than your flu-ridden fiance. Plus he did come eventually. 20 points for him even being near me at that time.

Anyway, I digress. I got the flu, as in I went to the doctor and tested positive. I couldn't even walk up and down the stairs. (I have a little bit of a beef with the doctor I visited who kept me at her office for a good hour after I tested positive before I finally left with my perscription. But I digress yet again.) I was given said perscription, had an allergic reation to it, broke out in a rash and threw up a lot (remember my insane fear of throw up?! worst. week. ever.), had to stop taking the medicine, and just battled it out with the flu for like 10 days or something. Oh and to add to the madness, when I called this wonderful doctor to inform her of the vomiting that I didn't experience until the medicine kicked in, her nurse told me "That's not possible. The medicine isn't that strong." Really... really?! I must be imagining it then. Then when I eventually broke out in a rash and went back into the doctor, they just told me I had to stop taking it and there was really nothing else I could do. Fabulous.

All of this happened before I had ever had a flu shot in my life. Now, my father swears against the flu shot. The only time he has ever gotten the flu was the only year he got a flu shot. And man did he get the flu... he was out of work for 11 days. And I can't remember another time in my life he took time off for being sick. However, the year that I got the flu, I had never gotten the shot. So I decided this past flu season (late 2008) to get the shot. Turns out I react to the shot also... surprise surprise. And had intense flu-like symptoms for a couple days which, although it's shorter than the actual flu (which I managed to avoid for that flu season), still sucks.

What a dilemma. They are bringing the people who do the flu shots into church in October and I will probably avoid it now that I know the result. I can imagine the call into work. 'Yes, this is Becky Gilgour. I will be out sick on October 5th and 6th. How do I know? Well I'm getting a flu shot on the 4th and my body is just weird.' So come February, I am so hoping to be doing the happy dance that I have managed to avoid the flu all on my own, without the terrible shot.

Phew. What a post about nothing.

On a much, much lighter and entirely more pleasant note, Patrick got me flowers for no apparent reason (other than he's great) on Saturday. And I'm about to go walk into the office and convince him we should go shopping. Hooray for long weekends!

Oh and I think I will probably bust out our fall decorations! Yes, the blazing heat rages outside my window at the moment, but it's September and I want to. Starbucks has brought out their fall stuff... so I basically have to follow suit. Right?

There's a new man in my life...

Benjamin Paul Neilson. Is he the most handsome thing you've ever seen or what?

The happy Neilson family!


Seriously. He's a stud.

All I Can Say

And didn't You see me cry'n?
And didn't You hear me call Your name?
Wasn't it You I gave my heart to?
I wish You'd remember
Where you set it down

This is all that I can say right now
This is all that I can give

I didn't notice You were standing here
I didn't know that
That was You holding me
I didn't notice You were cry'n too
I didn't know that
That was You washing my feet

And this is all that I can say right now
And I know it's not much
And this is all that I can give
That's my everything

-All I Can Say, David Crowder Band

Love. It.

Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya...

... on vacation!!

Patrick and I took a very nice trip last week. We went to Orlando (ish) first to see my grandparents. They actually live in a very nice 55 and up neighborhood outside of Orlando. Then we spent the week at the beach in Gulf Shores, AL with my parents and sister.

It rained the day we had planned on going to this really neat wildlife park, but then there was a pretty rainbow!

This is me and Geemom. (Patrick has more pictures from this part of the trip that I'll post later.)

Our condo at the beach!

The balcony where wet sat and ate breakfast every morning.




View from our balcony

More of the condo grounds

Our room

Patrick went golfing four times while we were on this trip. Here's me driving the cart the one time I joined him.

Such a pro.

Reading on the beach

Patrick was a boogie board champ!

Pool time! This is the fam.

I missed the 'spitting water at you' photo opp. But I got close.

Packed to leave. :-(

We had SUCH a good time, and it was such a relaxing vacation. We're not settled in for long... Patrick leaves on the 16th for Philadelphia to do some training and I will be joining him up there on the 26th (10 days later... ugh) for some fun and extended family time! Have I mentioned I love summer?!

Pray!

I don't know these people, but they need your prayers badly.

Please watch and pray.

http://bit.ly/dAMli

Seriously Major Congratulations to the Lands!!!

Brice and Jeni's sweet Baby Ellie has made her entrance into the world.


Isn't she beautiful (mother AND daughter)?


I'm praying for God to scoot Kentucky a little closer to Texas so I can get a better look at her. :-)

Patrick's comment after we were both late to work so we could check out her pictures this morning: "It feels good to be an uncle." :-)

Congratulations, Lands!

PS Jeni has some amazing blogging/picture posting commitment. Pictures of them waiting in the hospital were posted before Ellie came, and pictures of Ellie after she was born came quickly. So exciting for those who are following! We love you!

Warning: This is going to be one of my girly, rambling posts. Mostly because we watched a girly movie tonight and then I read a girly blog and Patrick is upstairs so I have taken over the entire downstairs level with estrogen and his testosterone is therefore confined to the upstairs leaving me forced to write all things girly. (Insert a comment from my husband about me being "slightly dramatic.")

I find that the older I get, the more I crave "girl time." Not that I DON'T crave husband time, I definitely do. I can't imagine not having that time, but you know the whole living together thing does tend to encourage togetherness. Hooray for that... I love my husband and thoroughly enjoy living with him and being the lucky girl who gets to get up and go to bed with him daily. That being said... the further we go, the more I realize how much God has created in me a need for girls. I think part of it is my desire to feel needed. You know... how it feels nice when someone is going through something and needs someone to be there and they call you. Love to feel needed.

Tonight, we watched a movie and ate Twizzlers and Milk Duds, which takes me to a number of times that I did that with a friend who I no longer have a relationship with. I don't let go of things like that easily. I don't mean that I stay angry for a long time because I really don't... I am terrible at staying mad. I mean that I don't let go well. I really dislike change, and I don't do well letting go of people or places or things or traditions or ways of doing things or really anything at all. That's also not to say that this is something I'm constantly dwelling on; just something that's crossing my mind tonight.

On a completely different note, I'd like to get some outdoor dishes to go with our new (to us) outdoor furniture. I figured this would be primetime for that, but everywhere I've looked doesn't have a full set of anything. Just like 2 plates of one thing, two bowls of another, etc. So if anyone happens to know of a place with cute outdoor dishes that aren't crazy expensive, I'd love to hear about it!

Also, how is it that weekends go by SO fast?! (Thanks to my sweet husband for spending a lot of it running errands with me that I know wouldn't have been his first choice, fully engaged the whole time!)

That's enough for now.

Patrick-FULL week!!

He's home. :-)

Well ok, he's been home since Saturday (almost a FULL day earlier than expected, super exciting for me!) but it's still nice.

And in celebration of being back to normal, I have cooked the last two nights. Seriously! I know, it doesn't seem like something exciting to those of you cook-ers. But I'm not one of you, and for the most part cooking frustrates me because I get home from work tired and not at all in the mood for making a meal. But I have cooked twice, one incredibly successful, one not too bad.

I turned the always-a-favorite chicken crescent roll-ups into a casserole on Monday night. Patrick hasn't stopped talking about it since. He's got a weird obsession with casseroles, and when I turned his favorite food into a casserole well... he was excited, to say the least. I have to agree, it was good. We just finished it up at lunch today.

Because I know you were dying to hear, my perception of casserole is slightly different. I was discussing this with a friend on Friday night, and casseroles weird me out a bit. I guess if they're my own it's fine because I know what's in them. But a stranger's casserole... there's no telling. I don't love biting into a casserole trying to guess what's in there. Plus, the idea of throwing whatever we have in the pantry in an oven-safe dish and covering it in cheese until it bakes golden on the top and then calling it a meal is something that he is much more comfortable with than I am. But anyway, I digress. (For a humorous casserole blog entry of someone much funnier than I am, click here.)

Speaking of lunch... Patrick's working really close to home right now and he's come home for lunch three days in a row!!! (For those of you who don't know, I live about 2 minutes from where I work so I'm home for lunch fairly often.) The only problem with that is that I get used to it and when he moves projects it's really a bummer that he can't come home anymore. But for now, lunches at home are excellent. Especially when they are yummy leftovers.

I am in baby shower (for other people, NOT myself) whirlwind mode. Baby shower one of five (four of which I am contributing to throwing) is coming up in a couple weeks, and we have a lot done for it. I'm pumped! Everything is so cute and tiny! (Well ok, it's baby shower 2 of 6. But Jeni's came way earlier. Check out her post.. isn't she such a cute, glowing pregnant lady??)

Oh, and I'm a couple days late, but here's a shout out to my sweet cousins/flower girls whose birthday was a few days ago.

Happy birthday Erin and Jamie!!!

(PS They have grown a ton since last year but I couldn't get any new pictures to work. Aren't they cute?!)

Have a fantastic rest of the week!!

Becky

Patrick-less week

I (Becky) have been on my own this week. Patrick is with his friends on a trip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, so since Sunday morning I've been doing my own thing. (Somewhat. We have talked a ton!)

What a learning experience. I was unsure what this would be like, as I don't think we've spent a night apart since we got married. First lesson: I have fabulous friends and family who have kept me incredibly busy doing lots of fun things since the moment he left. I had lunch with my mom and sister after church Sunday and then hung out with my fantastic (adult) small group on Sunday night until 11 or so. Monday morning I did some cleaning up from Birthday Week (which was a HUGE success, by the way!) and some laundry, saw Star Trek with my family, then got a pedicure with Denise. Tuesday night the Mengers had me over for dinner and fun conversation. (Super yummy tortilla soup, I might add.) Wednesday was the last week of church for my (teenage) small group. It was a good time. And tonight I get to see some sweet college friends that I have missed OH so much for way too long now. Tomorrow night is another visit with a friend with the possibility of a sleepover, and Saturday I am doing some baby shower planning for some friends and then maybe outlet mall shopping with my mom. PHEW! Then Patrick is back on Saturday night!!!

Work has been a little crazy too which keeps me occupied during the day. And it was a 4 day work week which is always a plus. I am very thankful that he has not traveled for work like we thought he probably would when he took this job. That would be no fun at all. He is going to preteen camp in July, but it's a much shorter trip and much closer to home.

Lesson two: I talk a lot. :-) I'm used to having him around to talk to all the time, so when he calls at night I'm talking his ear off. Isn't there some statistic about the number of words that females need to get in on a daily basis? I think I meet it.

Lesson three: I have gotten pretty much nothing done that I intended to get done while he was gone. The house is not as clean as I intended, and there were lots of errands I have not accomplished. Oh well!

On another note, I used "Kaboom with the power of Oxi" on our shower and it's fantastic but makes my hands feel funny. Note to self: the power of Oxi is strong. Use gloves.

Alrighty, that's enough. I will post a separate Birthday Week post, complete with pictures for your viewing pleasure. Try to hold back your excitement. :-)

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Hubs

I have to brag on Patrick a little bit. I realize that this is mostly for our sake more than yours, and that's ok. But you should know what a wonderful husband I have.

This is not a huge secret, but when we first got married it was a tiny bit of a rocky start. We could go back even further and say our engagement started with a VERY rocky start, but I'll leave that for another day. We did not give ourselves enough time to find a place to live, so when we moved into the townhouse we live in now in the couple days before the wedding, it needed some help before it was liveable. A "maid" claimed to have cleaned the place. She even left us a list of the things she had "done." It was a load of bologna. The house was filthy. I will not even make you read about it. Just picture filthy and you've got a general idea. In addition, they didn't manage to paint before we moved in. The entire place (considering the dirty-ness) needed to be repainted. Should have happened on our honeymoon but alas, it did not. We came home from our honeymoon to find that they had turned off our electricity, and the house was not painted. So we went and took a nap at my parents and came back "home." It took them some time to paint the whole place, so everything we owned stayed in boxes. We had gotten new couches, and they stayed wrapped in plastic in the middle of our living room. Our bedroom furniture was all pushed to the middle of the room and we lived out of boxes. Let's just say, I didn't handle the whole thing well. I needed to get clothes to wear to work, but I SO did not want to be at "home" that I only got one outfit at a time from my parents house so that I HAD to go back. :-) It gets worse than that, but I'll spare you the details.

Despite the earliest days, I am very blessed with a beautiful, healthy marriage to an incredible husband. He is so sweet to me. I will look up from reading a magazine (usually an issue of Real Simple that he has picked up on his way home to surprise me) and he'll just be smiling at me from across the room. He tells me how beautiful I am constantly, and he tells me I'm a wonderful wife daily, even though it's usually in the face of 27 loads of laundry I've been putting off and two weeks without a REAL homemade meal. (I mean, I make a mean spaghetti, but does that count?) He stays up later than he prefers to talk to me, even though his ideal evening would include getting in bed and immediately being asleep. He delays leaving in the morning as long as possible, and oohs and ahhs over the lunch I've made him (nevermind that it's a turkey sandwich). He's going on a trip to the Tetons next week, and although I know he is beside himself with excitement, he keeps reminding me how much he'll miss me.

Like I said, I know that's sort of a blog post that doesn't do much for the readers, but I just wanted to get it out there how very blessed I am.

Speaking of, I am mid-birthday week. We went shopping on Friday night, which turned out VERY well for me and the owners of Ann Taylor Loft. Then Saturday I got roses and dinner with his family. Which also included gifts from them, including some super cute flip flops that I wore to church today! Today I got grapples. If you don't know what that is, it's an apple with some grape flavor, and it's DELICIOUS. We never buy them because they are insanely overpriced, but I got some today. :-) I also got waffles made from waffle mix from the Gunther House. (If you're ever in San Antonio, you have to go out there. No questions asked.) Tonight we celebrated with our small group, and I got a yummy angel food cake and a sweet card. Then we headed out early for an Andrew Peterson concert. So far, birthday week rocks. This week also rocks because I am leaving work early on Friday. SO many good things going on right now!

Did I mention how blessed I am???

PS 68 days to vacation. :-)

Pictures!

This one is the crazy flooding. Actually, this is the week before the crazy flooding. Our street just REALLY likes standing water. Lucky us!



This one is Patrick with his mom on Mother's Day eve! We went to the Astros game.

They did fireworks for the occasion. Actually, they kept saying "Tonight we will do a special edition of our Friday night fireworks for Father's Day!" Hm.

That's Patrick's mom opening her gifts.

(Do you love our green paint?? We do!)

Sunday was Mother's Day with my mom, and then yesterday we went to Le Mistral for my mom's birthday. And my dad took some pictures, so I'll have to steal them.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! This week has been good so far, and tonight I just might get a pedicure. :-)

9 days to my birthday!!

72 days to vacation!!!

Back from blogging sabbatical!

WOW! So much going on since my last post.

We are both fully recovered from the longest cold ever. Thank goodness. And neither of us have swine flu, AND despite the fact that our street flooded in a major way like I have never seen before during all the rain earlier this week, it did not get in the house, did not get in our cars, and receded nicely for us to get to work on time the next day. (Ok, so the last part's a bummer, but we are very glad we had no damage/flooding to speak of.) I will post pictures of the flooding we had in our street LAST week, and then you can just imagine it being twice as bad this week. Literally. Plus, Chris and Leslie lost power, so Leslie had to come hang out in our air conditioned house and give up her attempts at reading by candlelight. :-) So that was also good times.

Patrick and I are doing some serious vacation planning, and I am beside myself with excitement! Ideally, there will be a trip to Disney/the beach in July, and a trip to Baltimore in August. Patrick has to go to Philadelphia for work at the end of August, and since his plane tickets are paid for, I figured I would tag along to see the family! So excited.

Also, Leslie helped us paint the downstairs of our house. (Pictures to come!) She is amazing. Patrick and I don't love painting, and last time we painted we did not like each other at the end quite as much as we had at the beginning. :-) But this time was painless, and the color (with Leslie's recommendation) looks great. We love it! The next order of business was our bedroom, accomplished sans Leslie this week. Let's just say, the color looks amazing, and next time we will wait on Leslie. :-)

This weekend is Mother's Day and and then my mom's birthday right after that. I pretty much finished everything Mother's Day related today at lunch, which is being very on top of things for me.

Tonight was a date night. We did Panera and then tried out Fresco, a new frozen yogurt place by our semi new HEB. It was SO yummy! Different, but yummy. And not cheap. But yummy. And with really short chairs. But yummy.

I will start a countdown to vacation soon, no worries! Did I mention I can't wait??? Oh, and my birthday is in 14 days. :-) We can go ahead and start that one now.

Time to take a bath, read some Twilight, and then cuddle!

Glorious lack of stuffiness!

We are FINALLY recovering from this cold Patrick and I have been passing to each other for giong on 2 weeks. Thank goodness.We keep alternating days of one of us feeling better than the other, so at least usually one of us is able to keep the house from being a complete disaster. (As long as a complete disaster doesn't include kleenex strewn all over the house. Well ok, toilet paper. We don't have any kleenex and going to the store hasn't been on my list of priorities since the illness occurred.)

We have quite the weekend upon us. My parents are on a little mini vacation, so they left town this morning and we have my sister until tomorrow when we take her to Disciple Now. So tonight will entail a little bit of shopping that I need to do, going to Lowe's to pick out paint colors (we both absolutely hate painting so that should be good times), finding some dinner, and going to get the dog. (We get the dog for the weekend too.) Then tomorrow is work, get Anjela from school, take her home to do homework, back to work, back home, possible wii time with Levi, taking Anjela to Disciple Now, waiting 2 hours, driving 10th grade girls to the Yaws for Disciple Now, and possibly spending the night at my parents because Libby (dog) doens't do so hot at our house overnight. Saturday is Jeni's baby shower (yay!), possibly painting, more Disciple Now transportation, possible Miller Outdoor Theater. And Sunday we have more Disciple Now transportation, church, maybe more painting, and small group (which is themed kosher/miracle/biblical/Middle Eastern foods including a passover meal). Should be interesting!

I stayed home from work sick on Monday and listened to three of Mark Driscoll's sermons. Mark and I don't quite see eye-to-eye on everything, but in general I enjoyed some of it. I will say he often has an interesting choice of clothes. He's a fan of patchy jeans and the Avril Lavigne wristband/bracelet type things. But anyway. It worked for me laying in bed until 1:30.

The main point of this post is that we are feeling better and really excited!

Happy Easter.

Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain
Holy, holy is He
Sing a new song to Him Who sits on Heaven's mercy seat


Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything, and I will adore You


Clothed in rainbows of living color
Flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder
Blessing and honor, strength and glory and power be
To You, the only wise King


Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything, and I will adore You


Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder
At the mention of Your Name
Jesus, Your Name is power, breath and living water, such a marvelous mystery


Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything, and I will adore You

-Revelation Song by Gateway Worship
(I strongly strongly suggest you listen to the song if you haven't heard it for yourself.)

**Update: the song is on my playlist now as you can all tell, so the comment about listening to it yourself can be disregarded. I still suggest you listen, but right here is good. :-)

Nappetizer

I (Patrick) haven't been feeling too great these last two days. That's tough for me to admit.
I came home from work today and crashed. I just got in my recliner and could not keep my eyes open. I took a nap. And woke up to dinner my wife had made. Simply, that was the best nap ever.

I'm such a lucky guy!

Ethan Allen on an Ebay budget

You know how there are times when you really want something (a tangible something), and you think about it and think you really should have it, and then you see someone who has lost something that REALLY matters and all of a sudden the thing you wanted is meaningless? I (Becky) had one of those moments this week. The details of the story really don't matter, except that I keep reminding myself "In ten years, when I am (hopefully) wiping noses and all that, will I really care if I had ? Nope." "If I found out tomorrow that Patrick had terminal cancer, would I care if we could buy a house with a fireplace? Nope." Phew.

It's Easter week. Tonight in youth, there was a presentation of the time leading up to Jesus' death and what he chose to do with his time, and a point was made that I found really intriguing. If I knew that I had a day to live, I would not choose to go off to a quiet place by myself and pray. I would soak up every remaining moment with my husband and family and friends. I would see life completely differently, of course, but it would not once cross my mind to get away by myself. I would immerse myself in people. How human of me is that?? I don't really have anywhere else to go with that.

If you don't ever listen to Ben Stuart's Breakaway podcasts, I truly believe you are missing out.

I would like to share with you something that God has done for us. I have honestly typed this numerous times and erased it because it feels like bragging. But that's not my intention. Patrick and I, as you all know if you have read our earlier blogs, took the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class before (and a couple weeks after) we got married. We decided to really try to make wise decisions with our money. Since that decision, God has seriously guarded our money. It is absolutely crazy. One of our first purchases was a kitchen butcher block type thing. We invited our whole small group over, and we absolutely did not have nearly enough counter space to put food for 14 people. So we decided to buy this butcher block, went to the store to buy it, they didn't have it. We didn't have time to shop around, and I was actually really disappointed because people were coming over!!! Then we found the exact same one for half the price, basically unused, on Craigslist.

When we started looking to rent or buy, things miraculously fell into place. I kid you not, miraculously. We intended to look to rent, and then this place to buy fell into our laps. It was this dirt cheap place, needed some fixing up, and we absolutely fell in love with it. We left, took about an hour (yeah... only an hour... dumb.) to think about it, and decided we actually really might want to make an offer. We called our real estate agent, and (you are not going to believe this) the place had been on the market for I think like 8 months. Between the hour that we looked at it and decided to start talking about an offer, a person went in and offered cash and bought the place. Whoa. We were like "ok, I think that's a definite sign" and looking back it was a huge blessing. We did not need that house, and if we had bought it we would be stuck in it right now. Also, when negotiating the rent for the townhouse we live in, we planned to only rent for 6 months and then buy. (I don't know why we were in SUCH a hurry.) So we went through the whole contract with the lady and said 6 months, and then like 3 days before we were supposed to start moving stuff in, she said forget it I'll only do a year. WHAT a blessing! She lowered the price even more to do it for a year, and now that it's been a year we still need more time!

Our most recent example is another blows-me-away type. Patrick has wanted a desk for awhile. He wants a 'man room' and that was our guest bedroom/office. But the sparse furniture in there really didn't quite give off an office vibe. The "desk" was super tiny, so we started looking around. He found one that he wanted at Ikea, and I went and looked at it. He had gone before me with the intention to buy it. I said I really just wasn't comfortable buying it right then, and we left. I found the desk for less than half the price on Craigslist, listed with a bookshelf. Patrick emailed the guy, and he said he would sell it without the bookshelf but wouldn't lower the price. We said no thanks. A few months ago, a friend of our parents had mentioned getting rid of some (very nice, expensive) furniture. We didn't give it much though because we really hadn't budgeted to even spend the Craigslist price of this kind of furniture. We didn't think we could offer them anything close to what the furniture was worth. Well then a couple weeks ago, they said they would give it to us. Yes, you read that right... GIVE it to us. This amazing, beautiful desk... given to us.

It just continues to amaze me that the more patient we are, the more blessed. The more we remind ourselves that we don't really HAVE to have these things, the more we are blessed. Again, I don't want you to read this and think "well woo hoo, lucky you. you have stuff." That's not the point. We are so very thankful for the blessings we have received from being so diligent with our decision to make wise financial choices.

Happy Easter week! I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon and get off work early on Friday so I don't have any more full days of work this week and I am pumped.

Love you! Seriously, though. Love you.

I'm a change hater and a coffee smell lover.

I (Becky) really wish I liked coffee. I absolutely love the way it smells. Patrick is a coffee-lover, so he always gives me his to smell. I could probably go to Starubucks and sit and smell coffee for a long time.

I have been reading scripture on Bible gateway lately. I used to be somewhat against this for no apparent reason other than I am completely 100% against change of any kind, and Bible gateway scripture reading is not my traditional way of reading scripture, so it must be wrong. Apparently not. (Do you see me as a strict rule-follower? I am. I also refuse to make guesses when it comes to measuring things for cooking. Everything must be measured. Except for milk in macaroni and cheese. I don't know what it is about mac and cheese, but I'm ok with guessing.)

Anyway, today, the reference started in Hebrews 12. The first three verses of Hebrews 12 happen to be some of my absolute favorite.

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Let us run witih perseverance the race marked out for us. Hm. This reminds me of another thing I have been pondering lately. I was reading something earlier today that intrigued me. It was a discussion of how when a child obeys without being asked, it is so much more meaningful than after being told what to do a hundred times. And how similar it is with God. When we just walk forward without having to be shown the way over and over, and without the knowledge that everything is going to be ok (the way WE see "ok"), and without constant worry about whether or not a step of faith means we're going to drown. Those times of obedience are so much more meaningful than that times that we labor over whether ot not we are willing to make the decision to follow, more meaningful than the times that we question for hours if God is REALLY going to come through. And I think that obviously the ability to step out in faith comes with practice. And comes with many experiences where we believe without seeing and God prevails.

But we love to worry, don't we? We love to weigh the 'worst case scenario.' I'm sure God loves that. I'm sure he loves that we think "Well I COULD trust God with the decision of whether or not to buy a house and quit worrying about it, but what if that means we totally miss this great opportunity in the market and we miss the great interest rates and we wind up not being able to afford anything because we waited too long and prices went up and now we have to rent until ETERNITY and our children will never have a home or we will have to buy cheap and wind up in a neighborhood that's not a good investment in the long run and therefore we are wasting our money!' Now that's faith, right? How much more meaningful would it be if, immediately upon being faced with the decision of whether to extend our lease, I said "God will take care of this and it will turn out exactly how it's supposed to. We will pray about it and be at peace with a decision." Phew. And how much less stressed I would personally be.

Speaking of wasting "our" money, our pastor has been doing a wonderful financial series lately about "our money" not ever being "ours" anyway. I am not at all a spender. It physically hurts me to spend large amounts of money. Don't get me wrong... I don't have problems with giving money. I love to give. I mostly love to give presents, but I am also very content to give money. We are so very very grateful to be able to give money to our church and several other ministries that we believe in. But I think that I would worry less (do you see a trend here?) about money if I remembered more often that it wasn't my money to begin with. If we gave every penny we had to our church, the rent would somehow get paid. We would still eat and drink. The jars of oil would overflow, and we would be content. I don't know exactly how it would work out, but we would be taken care of. God has actually made some financial decisions without us already up to this point. We have tried to go one direction... he shut the door in our faces... and his door had WAY better things behind it. More of that to come.

Would you think I was a weirdo if I said that I would like to sit in Starbucks, drink vanilla chai (actually I prefer the brownie frappuccino but they don't make those anymore for some ridiculous reason and they keep me up all night no matter what time of day I drink them) and blog for a living? Weirdo or not, I'd take it.

Sorry for the major amount of rambling I have been doing lately. But I love you all.

Blog stalking-inspired soul searching

Here is where some of my thoughts (Becky again) have been lately:

-Should we buy a house? I am torn in a thousand directions on this. We wanted to have more money saved before we bought, for one. We planned to wait another year, for two. Rates are ridiculously low (and I currently work for a mortgage company), there is an excellent tax credit, and many cheap houses to be had. Plus, Obama says go for it. (That's a joke. Kinda. He really says go for it but I'm really not listening.) We are completely priced out of the area we are in. This is a bummer and leads to more decisions. We love the area because it has everything so close, and it's so so close to I10, and Patrick's commute when he is downtown is pretty easy. But we absolutely can not afford the houses in the area. So where to buy? Further in is (in most places) more expensive and further from church. Further out starts to really stretch it for a commute. We could buy a house further out for so so so cheap and that is so tempting! But does that make sense for us? And do market conditions mean this is the right time to buy FOR US? I don't know! (Side note: We don't plan to buy right now. Hopefully closer to the end of the year, it depends on what we can do with our current lease.)

-Friendships. This is presenting a very new situation for me. The majority of my friends in all areas of my life are having babies. Patrick and I are totally not there right now, and we are on the same page with that. But come July to December-ish, a lot of our friendships will change a lot. I am THRILLED about this! I love babies, I'm just not craving one of my own right now. I love babies I can give back! I'm really excited to see all these new babies and who they will be and how cute they will be and be a part of their lives. But it definitely means a change for us, and a large change in our current small group. So those are changes coming up that we don't really know what they will look like. Exciting but so new and different. (Another side note: I am feeling very lucky that I get to see other people experience the whole pregnancy/birth/baby/toddler/etc. stages before me so I can get a better idea of what that's like before I am ready to go there.) On the other hand, I have three beautiful bridesmaids without babies on the way who are in Houston and rarely seen, and that makes me a slacker of a friend. I need to get on that.

-What are my long-term plans as far as work? I hesitate to even write this because I really don't know who all reads this and I don't want to give off the impression that I am going to up and quit. But in the long run, what do I want to do as far as working full-time? I'm torn on this too. "Taking care" of my family, present and future, seems like it could mean a lot of different things. On the one hand, I'd love to be home more to not just want to crash at the end of the day, to make dinner, to get errands run. On the other hand if/when I do stop working or work less, it means definite sacrifices. The vacation fund will be quite a bit smaller I am sure, for one. And I currently am a chronic counter downer to vacation. And I feel like I would think I had to have everything perfectly taken care of to feel like I was holding up my end of the deal. Which I know myself well, and I know that I would fail at keeping everything together all the time. Probably within about a day. Maybe less.

Anyway, I think that's about enough life issues for one night! Feel free to voice an opinion or empathize or object.

Tomorrow is FRIDAY! HOORAY for the weekends! (In case you haven't previously noticed, I am also a counter downer to the weekends. So Thursday nights are quite the milestone.)

What's in a name?

I've (Becky) been doing some serious blog stalking this week. I was on someone's blog that I sorta know, followed a link from theirs to another blog, and from that person's blog to a third person's blog. Third person is an excellent writer with a great story, and I've been blog stalking since I found her. She invites people to blog stalk, so that makes me feel a little less weird.

Am I the only blog stalker? I doubt it. There are a number of people whose blogs I check every now and then that I really barely know who probably don't know that I check.

As weird as this may sound, I plan to change my part of the blog posts some now that I've read hers. Her blog is full of vulnerability, and so I have decided that some of my posts will be a little bit more about who I am than previous ones. Some will just be goofy ones, some just random reports about what we're doing. But some will step it up a notch.

You can expect Patrick to continue blogging about his love of bacon. :-) And rightfully so, as that is actually quite an important part of who he is.

I met a girl at church a couple of weeks ago and she goes 'Is your last name Palmour?' and I said 'Yes it is! Wait.. no. It's not. It used to be.' Can I say that changing your name is just weird? Your name is something you get kinda used to. Somewhat attached to.

It goes to important places with you. My name has a little more history than some. Rebecca Lynn Palmour actually was not given to anyone at birth. My name, Rebecca Lynn Nelson, was given to me, obviously, on May 21, 1985. Then years later, my name followed me and changed a little to Rebecca Lynn Palmour. (Only really lucky Rebecca Lynn Nelson Palmour Gilgour's get two pretty impressive dads!) Then Rebecca Lynn Palmour got accepted into the gifted and talented program in elementary school. It followed me still to the ninth grade were Rebecca Lynn Palmour made the Langham Creek High School cheerleading squad. It stamped itself onto my my first driver's license on my 16th birthday. Rebecca Lynn Palmour's passport let me into Europe for an amazing study abroad while I was in college. It goes to graduation from high school and college, where Rebecca Lynn Palmour walked the stage for two degrees from the greatest university in the world. It goes to my wedding day where Rebecca Lynn Palmour took Patrick Lundy Gilgour to be her wedded husband.

And then one day it changes. (Or if you're me and not very organized, it changes on multiple days as you very slowly change your social security card, license, debit cards, health insurance card, etc. I'm actually still not done with that process.) Anyway, it's weird.

And on a random Sunday morning, Rebecca Lynn Gilgour forgets for a second that's her name, and has to take a second to remember exactly who she is. Isn't that just a crazy phenomenon?

tv talk

Patrick and I are into SVU. Usually, new ones come on after The Biggest Loser on Tuesday nights. Apparently tonight was some kind of important Biggest Loser because we did not have a new SVU. Bummer.

We are considering getting a tivo. I (Becky) am cheap. I don't like anything that involves extra monthly expenses, even though they are small. We follow several shows, but that's not really the reason for the tivo. The plan is to restrict tv watching to an hour a night, and just watch our specified show (if we have one that day) and spend the rest of the evening being more productive or having more quality time together and/or with others. So we will record the shows we follow and watch them in the designated time and then the tv goes off. I won't lie, sometimes after work I am totally drained and camp out on the couch. So we shall see.

Tivo or no tivo? Your thoughts?

Revisiting/Revising my Resolutions

I (Becky) revisited my post about New Years resolutions. I said that I wanted to be more physically active (check) make better use of lists (check) and take care of small things instead of putting them off (usually check). I've added a new one. I am going to invest more in relationships. At least that is my goal. It seems like in college that was so much easier. I had roommates, so of course I saw them. And I had scheduled events and meetings weekly where I saw the majority of my friends. But it turns out I'm not very good at maintaining friendships that aren't quite as convenient as they used to be. But that is not my intention! So I am remedy-ing it. Not completely sure what it looks like yet, but I'm on it.

On another note, we have yet another pregnant friend! More to come.

Like a Young Adult at the Deli Counter

If you know me (Patrick), you know I love to eat (almost) more than anything. My wife doesn't feel the same way, which sometimes becomes a source of tension between us. Becky eats to live, I live to eat. This, obviously, is most present at the grocery store. She goes in with a list and only wants to get those things. I want to walk to all of the counters and see what's going on.

Where this is most present is in our selection of lunch meats. Becky gets the same Hillshire Farms turkey in a box each week. Yes, I did say, "turkey in a box". I know, turkey does not come in a box. I eventually could no longer take this. I started going to the deli counter to get my own cold cuts.

But Patrick, isn't that more expensive? About a year ago, Becky and I read Smart Couple's Finish Rich. In this book, the author makes the argument that you should save wisely and identify several areas in life that are most important to you and spend your money on those things and filter out expenses that don't matter. I mean, that makes sense, right? Well, I've identified eating as one of my favorite things to do.

So it's okay that I spend marginally more money on these things. I spend more time on food, too. I plan vacations and evenings around eating. Some of my greatest moments are sharing meals with great friends.

Last week I got some great black forest ham and this week I chose pastrami.



Mmmmm, boy!

Spring Fake 2009!!

Obviously, Patrick and I being out of college, we do not have a spring break. However, we have decided that we will pretend we do. So we have implemented Spring Fake 2009. We are doing something fun and out of the ordinary every day, staying up a little bit later than we usually do, planning to try out the pool at our townhouse complex, and I am taking some time off tomorrow to hang out with my mom and sister who are doing real spring break. So far, it has been a success.

Monday night, I had dinner with Michelle and Patrick went to the park. Then we went to Ikea and looked at desks. Then came home and watched Jon and Kate, of course. Then last night we had the Flicks over to play Wii and have some ice cream. (And we wore green all day of course, in honor of Saint Patrick's Day, and Patrick's Irish heritage.) Tonight we don't have church like we normally do since the kids are out of school, so another night open for something random and fun. The week hasn't been too crazy at work for me, so it's actually really worked out well to pretend we have spring break. :-)

Hope everyone who has a real spring break is savoring it. And happy (late) Saint Patrick's Day!

Campers extraordinaire!

There is something those of you who know Patrick (and his extreme love of camping) well should know. He doesn't camp with me quite the same as during one of his hardcore Grand Canyon-type trips. I know that's surprising, but true. :-) He thinks of EVERYTHING. And it's a slightly more cushy trip. (In case you're not aware, camping is not so much my thing.) We left work early on Friday and headed for Stephen F Austin. It's actually relatively close to our house and a really nice park.



When we got there, Patrick unloaded everything, set up the tent (and hammock!), and started on dinner while I made up the bed.




I found it very amusing that the bed I made was just about identical to his bed in college. That's correct, in college he slept in a sleeping bag under that exact blanket. :-) Also, the yummy dinner on his new stove (thanks, Sid, Vicki, Philip, Kimberly, and Chloe!) includes baked beans in yet another birthday gift... the new camping pots.




And of course, what's a camping trip without s'mores? Stephen F Austin was under an extreme burn ban, so we made them over the stove!



We explored some before we went to bed. I got Patrick some kind of astronomy map of the stars thing that glows in the dark, so we spent a lot of time holding it up to the sky trying to find constellations!

This attempt at camping was far more successful than our last attempt. Last time, there was a very rowdy group of teenagers near us that never went to sleep. This time, the people around us were families and it was very nice.

In the morning, Patrick made us breakfast! Pancakes (he makes the mix before we leave to go camping and keeps it on ice), bacon, eggs, and coffee. (See?! I told you he thinks of everything.)



After breakfast, we did some exploring/hiking. There is a river that runs through the park, so we went down there to check it out.




After hiking, we came back and ate lunch, and then sat in the hammock and relaxed/talked until we had to give up our campsite.




All in all, it was an enjoyable trip. Relaxing, lots of yummy food, and Patrick was REALLY excited that I went and made it the whole time. :-)

Birthday week was a success.