Voddie Baucham: Food for thought.

Last weekend, Zack and I attended a Conference that was being held in our little town. The speaker was Voddie Baucham. We had heard of him and had watched part of a video of him once when we attended Zack's parent's Sunday School Class. So, we had a little knowledge of him, but were not too familiar with him. The conference had been advertised in our church bulletin and several of our friends were planning to attend.

Zack and I had talked about it some, but Zack had been sick all week and had been coming home from work to crash only to repeat the process the next day. So, I had forgotten about it. Friday, our friend Anna Lauren sent out a text about tickets. So, I txt'd Zack at work to see if he wanted to go.

Anna Lauren ended up having an extra ticket and we bought the other one at the door.

Zack got home a few minutes before we needed to leave and I had been in the process of making some dinner...which didn't get done in time. So, I pulled the pan off of the burner and turned my stove off. It was an all vegetable dinner. So, other than the veggies getting a little mushy, I wasn't afraid of anything spoiling.

We ran out the door and met up with some of our friends to spend the next 3 hours in praise and worship and Biblical study.

Zack and I have been studying the Christian world view now for a couple of months....We recently completed a series called "The Truth Project" with our small group that was put out by focus on the family. It was REALLY good. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to learn more about the Christian world view.

Here's a little promo video about it:


So, having just completed this series, Voddie's conference and topic seemed interesting. The first session was about Cultural Apologetics and Biblical World View. Apologetics is basically knowing what you believe, why you believe it, and being able to share it. It is based off of a scripture out of I Peter 3, (paraphrased) Always be ready to give a reasoned response for the Hope that is within you.

The second session of the first day was about the Culture war and how it affects the family. Voddie had some interesting things to say about this. He is a very good speaker and very opinionated. sometimes the things that he said were a little hard to swallow, but thought provoking....He is a HUGE proponent of godly marriage and the family unit... He was stating that many view the breakdown of the family as a triumph for our culture. that is a little scary to think about. I doubt the child of the broken home would view it the same way if asked. The family unit is such a vital part of a culture!

Saturday, we woke up early and headed back for more. Voddie's first lecture of the day was about the homosexual movement and it's effect on our culture. He again had a lot of strong opinions about this topic and I am sure that more than 1 person left feeling a little offended. His thoughts on the topic were definitely interesting and challenging to hear.

The second topic of the day was Biblical World View and was basically a lesson on how to defend your faith from the most basic argument that people will throw at you, "Why do you believe the Bible?" Voddie used multiple scriptures and facts to back up his points and it was very informative.

I definitely left the weekend with a lot to think about. I enjoyed the weekend even if some of the topics discussed were very controversial and the opinions shared were sometimes challenging. It was definitely food for thought!

If you've never heard of Voddie and would like to hear him speak, there are a couple of his sermons that you can listen to here.

A little something cheery for work

I have been very bad about changing my work decor this year....for instance right now, my desk at work sports letters that spell out fall, a very pretty, but VERY fall inspired flower arrangement, and 2 pumpkins sitting proudly on candle sticks. It was very festive and cute during October/November, but it is getting a little bit sad to see when I walk into my office...if any home decor that is going WAY outlive it's seasonal norm I have to draw my line at the Christmas tree. We all know that I have a little trouble getting the tree taken down and packed away...hence why mine is still proudly displayed in my living room...and yes the lights are twinkling brightly even as I type this...don't judge me! Anyway, I digress.

Today I decided that it was time to do something about the gloomy state of my desk at work and since I have actually had a couple of days off where I haven't been asked to come into work and I haven't been sick, I dragged myself over to our local Micheal's to have a look around.

I needed a new floral arrangement for my desk. Something cheery and something that would work for valentine's day. SO, this is what I ended up with. I am pretty happy with the finished product.

a chance to put those Christmas gifts to use.

Zack decided to get some new tools with some of his Christmas money this year. He bought himself a new pair of safety glasses, some clamps, and a set of dremel tools. He was able to put all of these to use doing a little home fix it project.

We got some bar stools to put by our kitchen counter this past year. One of them had been getting pretty wobbly over the last couple months. We have been hosting small group at our house over the last few weeks and I didn't even think to let people know that that stool was a little unstable. One of our sweet friends was sitting on the stool and she shifted her weight ever so slightly. Well, a few months of wear and tear and wobbly legs had finally gotten the best of our stool and the stool decided to collapse. Thankfully our friends feet were on the ground. So, when the stool started to fall, she was able to catch herself. I felt bad that she had almost fallen and informed her that the stool had been on its last leg for a while.

Zack decided that he would fix the stool...it shouldn't be too hard a project. It, of course, ended up taking more time to fix than anticipated. Zack couldn't decide just how he wanted to go about fixing it...and of course games with friends and ultimate Frisbee practice...and several other activities came up that took precedence over the stool.

However, after pulling it apart, cleaning it out, a trip to the hardware store, a little glue some drilling, some screws, and a night of drying, our stool is better than ever.

Games with the Jones

We have been trying to get together with the Jonsies for a while now to play games. However, something has come up either in their lives or ours to prevent getting together. We finally got to go over to their house on Sunday night to play games.

Zack decided to take the 2 new games that he got for Christmas along with us. Caren and Forrest had heard Zack talking about how much he liked Ticket To Ride. So, that is what we ended up playing. As seems to be the theme when we play games, Zack and Caren fought for first while Forrest and I fought over last....and I thought that I was doing SO well! :(

Little A joined in the fun.

The biggest looser work edition.

In January, the girls at my office decided to start a Biggest Looser competition. So, I decided to jump on the band wagon, although, I have very little chance of actually winning the competition. My thought was that by joining I would get some accountability, thus causing me to be more intentional about healthy eating and exercise.

A couple of my coworkers and I have decided that we are going to start walking/running together a couple times a week. This week was our first week to go...and I would just like to say that my legs are sore....how sad is that? I ran for 15 minutes yesterday and now it hurts to sit, it hurts to stand, it hurts to walk. I guess that that is what I get for taking a break from physical activity for the last 4 months. Hopefully I will be back in shape and back to a more consistent work out schedule here soon!

As far as weight loss, I did loose 1 pound the first week and then 5-6 the next week thanks to my stomach bug. However, since then I have gained a pound a week. I am still down about 4 pounds though. I would like to loose about 5 more pounds, and hopefully tone up some.

Our competition is running through March. So, we will see how things go.

Game night at the puddle

Zack and I had invited our small group over for a game night on Monday night, but due to all of the snow that we got, we had to reschedule for Friday night. Zack had things all planned out. He wanted to have a couple of gaming tables set up so that people could play different game....I think that really he just wanted to play Ticket To Ride again. I told Zack that this might not be a realistic plan as people would probably want to all play a game together. Zack was undaunted and even downloaded Ticket to Ride by the Beatles on his phone to play when he introduced the games.

We cleaned our house and got some goodies ready for people to eat during our game night. Everyone brought a little something to share. We had a pretty nice spread of goodies. I made some homemade hot chocolate with a topping bar: chocolate chips, marshmallows, and whipped cream...yum! I also had a fruit tray with marshmallow cream dip and some spinach and artichoke dip.



When everyone got to our house, we sat down as a group and tried to decide on a game/ games to play. As it turned out, everyone did want to play a game as a large group. So, poor Zack, he had to wait a little while to play his new game again. He bounced back pretty quickly from his disappointment though. We ended up playing Balderdash and we had a lot of fun and laughs!

It was a really fun night and we need to organize something like it again sometime soon!!

Snow Day!

The beginning of the second week of January brought with it a generous helping of SNOW!!! It started snowing Sunday night. I was convinced that it was NOT going to last and I went to bed fully expecting to have to go to work the next morning....I was half hoping that it would stick so that I could get another day of rest and recovery from being sick the end of the week before.




We woke Monday morning to a thick carpet of white outside our windows. I called into work to see if I was going to have to try to brave the roads and thankfully was told "No work today, enjoy your day off!" YAY!! I HATE driving in snow!

Zack and I bundled up and headed outside to look around. Zack grabbed a butter knife to "measure" the snow. We got between 4-5 inches. We walked up toward the closest major road, which had been plowed, but was still covered with snow. We then made our way through our neighborhood to the other major road that connects to the neighborhood. This road is actually the busier of the two and it looked much worse than the first. Where the first road had actually been plowed, this road was covered with snow having only icy/slushy ruts where people foolish enough to get out in the weather had driven.


Zack and I plodded back through the snow to our house. We tried to warm up a little bit and I made a pot of homemade hot chocolate.







We were supposed to be having friends over that night for games, but due to the weather we had to call it off. We decided that we needed a little adventure. So, we called our friends Hector and Christy that live close by to see if they would mind some company. We decided to walk to their house. Zack mapped it out on the computer and it was a 1.7 mile trek....totally doable.

We packed a bookbag with some games and some hot chocolate and we headed down the road. Once we started, we realized that there were a lot more people on the road than expected....we almost turned around to drive instead, but decided that for the sake of adventure....and because I car would not do very well in the snowy slush...We decided to press on toward our goal.





Zack and I had joked that we should tie our old tennis rackets or pieces of wood to our feet for added drama when we got to Hector and Christy's house, but we decided against it as it would be one more thing to carry.

We successfully made it to Hector and Christy's house...surveyed Hectors failed attempts at making a sled for C and after pouring mugs of hot chocolate, we sat down to play a game. Zack had brought his 2 new games from Christmas and we settled on playing Ticket to Ride....Zack and I like to introduce all of our friends to new games. We had some friendly bantering back and forth..spelling out word with out trains like "Beat Hector"....Beating Hector was not my luck however, because Hector ended up winning. That's what I get for my heckling.

After we finished the game, we went outside so that Zack and Hector could "retry" the lid sled that Hector had made earlier. They tried it in different places in the yard and even tried putting crisco on it to make it work better...not so helpful.








They did finally get the sled to work a little and they put little C on the sled and had him come down the small hill that they had found next to the house.


Once they had had their fill of sledding, they decided to try to build a snowman. C was so cute. He kept say "Frosty!!!" as they were stacking the giant snowballs.

Hector considered attack...

Zack started to retaliate...but in the end it was just a stand off.
They decided to have a truce and work toward a common goal.

So they rolled...

and rolled...

And rolled some more...

Little C supervised to make sure that things were being done properly.



He even had to step in and help out occasionally.

But in the end, the snowman stood proudly!
(I had a picture of the snowman uploaded...and I have no idea where it went. I will put a picture of him on her sometime soon!!)

Hector ended up driving Zack and I home since it had gotten dark outside and it was no longer safe for us to walk. We had such a good time getting to spend our snow day With Hector, Christy, and little C!

Ringing in the New Year with a 2nd Christmas.

For New Year this year, Zack and I headed up to my parents house. We were going to be celebrating Christmas with my family as well as ringing in the new year.

We were planning to head up to my parents as soon as we could after work on Wednesday, but as happened at Christmas, we ended up leaving on Thursday. I had been feeling a little under the weather and REALLY needed to get some quality sleep. So, we went to bed early Wednesday night after packing and then left early Thursday am.

We made it to my parents house by about 10. Mom had just put a baked oatmeal recipe in the oven. We sat down to have brunch a short time later. The oatmeal was actually really tasty.

Shortly after brunch, Mom and I decided to go out for some shopping. I was on call Thursday night. So, we wanted to make sure that we were pretty close to home so we could run out and then run home again. So, we headed over to target and Kohl's to see if we could find any good after Christmas deals. I called the call service and had them try a test page to see if I had service where we were....nope. So, I had them text me my pages on my cell phone.

At around 5, Mom and I headed back to my parent's house. we figured that the guys were getting hungry and I would rather be at home when the calls started to come flooding in. We played around with my brother's camera lenses while we waited for dinner to warm. We had some soup that mom had made.

After dinner, we sat down and watched Prince of Persia. we kept having to pause it so that I could go take my calls, but thankfully there were not too many and the movie was entertaining.

Friday, Dad stole Zack and Peter and took them down to Mom and Dad's property to put them to work. While the guys were out working, Mom and I decided to do some last minute Christmas shopping. We headed out toward the mall. We went to Academy Sports (wish we had one close by our house) and I wanted to visit the craft stores, since we don't have many close to where we live. We ended up spending a lot of time in Joanne's, and then headed over to Wendy's for a late lunch. then we headed out to Marshall's to look around.

We figured that the guys would have eaten after they finished their work, but when I called Zack while mom and I were at Publix he told me that the only thing that he had had to eat, other than breakfast was a milkshake. Mom was appalled. She couldn't believe that the guys hadn't eaten.
So, we headed home and mom made some backed Ziti for dinner.

While we were waiting for dinner to cook, I finished wrapping our gifts and watched a couple episodes of psych with my dad.

A little while after dinner, we sat down to open Christmas gifts.

We gave my Dad a stone candle similar to what we gave Zack's mom. It took Dad a minute to figure out just what it was supposed to be.


We gave Mom a thirty-0ne large utility tote. I LURVE mine, and so, I thought it would come in handy for Mom. I was tempted to get myself another one when I placed the order for Mom's, but Zack would fuss at me...I have 2....but they are sooooo handy!


We had to give Peter an IOU. I ordered his gift several weeks before Christmas, but it is STILL on back order. ugh! We bought him a Marmot Approach Jacket. I had gotten soft shell Jackets for Zack and I last year and Pete had mentioned that he liked them. So, I scoured the internet to try to find a reasonably priced one....too bad it's still on back order. They told me this week that it would probably be another 4-6 weeks before they could ship it...I just hope that my next email from them doesn't say that they can no longer fill my order.




Zack and I got some great goodies from my parents. Although, you can tell that you have been getting sick a little too often with your parents give you Airborne for Christmas.


Saturday, we played some games and watched some Psych. We took the day pretty east, because most of us were pretty tired. We played ticket to ride and then later that evening Zack and my parents played the new game that they had gotten him, Wizards. i still haven't gotten a chance to play this with him, but he describes it as being a little like RAGE, but less enraging.



For dinner Saturday night, we had some ham rolls and soup that my mom had made.

Sunday morning, Mom made a breakfast casserole that we were literally eating as we walked out the door. Dad was wanting to get to Church early. So, we all shuffled out the doors and headed to the little church that my parents have been attending recently. This church has been around for about a year and it is really conveniently located a short drive from my parent's house.

The sermon was pretty good and after the sermon was over, we hung around for a little while and talked.

Mom had prepared a really nice Sunday dinner for us. We sat down to lunch and had a good time talking and enjoying delicious food.


Zack and I hung around until about dinner time, but we eventually had to pack up and head home. We really enjoyed our visit with my family and I am so thankful for all the meals and gifts that they provided us with! It was nice to be back "home" for a little while.