"the girls"

in college i had the awesome pleasure of meeting several people. some were just faces in a scopebook, others were acquaintances, many were friends, but few were in our circle of "the girls." yes, we were a click (is that how you spell it?) however if you have attended a small christian school you know there is no getting around it :) over the last 13+ years we have known each other we have celebrated 8 weddings & 11 births (plus 3 more on the way), we have laughed and cried together and spent too many hours gossiping about only God knows what. (pause for repentance).

heidi, chrissy, dragana, brooke, shelly, kellie,

me & sarah (we missed you nenette)

on saturday we all got together to celebrate brooke getting married and sarah having her first baby. shelly threw a beautiful shower for the girls with lots of yummy food :) thanks! it was a lot of fun watching the girls take turns opening up lingerie and then baby things. i meant to get a picture of the two stacks of gifts, one being a stack of pink victoria secret boxes and the other a stack of baby bibs, do-dads, and outfits. it was pretty funny. we couldn't help but comment on how one leads to the other :)

sarah & brooke

thanks girls for all the fun over the years. i love you all and can't wait till we get together again - do we know where we are going to gather?! (just kidding chrissy)

passing on tradition

tortillas are a loved food in our house. especially homemade ones by my mom. this last week grommie introduced the art of tortilla making to lilly. watching the tradition of making tortillas being passed on to my daughter brought back so many memories of me and my mom working in the kitchen together. lilly had a blast rolling out her very first tortilla. and mom and i had a blast watching her excitement and reminiscing about the fun we have had through the years in our kitchens. once all the cooking was done - we enjoyed good old mexican food, grommie style!

n.y.c

for our 8th anniversary dave and i went on a little vacation to the "big apple". if you can believe it, it was our first vacation (only the two of us) since our honeymoon! we had a blast. i really wish i was wearing a pedometer - because we walked everywhere. i'm sure in the course of the four days we were there we walked around 40 miles. here is a quick list of some of the things we did....
1. walk to times square several times
2. saw two broadway shows on the same day (hairspray & mary poppins)
3. went to a taping of the today show where barry manilow was performing (note photo of me with al roker.)
4. took a ferry and saw the brooklyn bridge, statue of liberty, and elis island.
5. walked through central park
6. visited the world trade center memorial
7. rode the subway
8. went to little italy
9. went to the village
10. went to soho (which i found out stands for south of houston)
11. ate out for every meal (blue fin was my favorite)
12. went shopping
13. visited other covenant church planting friends in harlem. jose & mayra.

i'm sure we did more, but this is all i can think of at this moment. needless to say we filled every minute and loved just being together!