Anticipation

I noticed that Brooke blogged about LOST and I got really excited! I have been counting down the days since last season. Here are my Top 5 Reasons that I love LOST…

1. Aaron and I discovered LOST one night at Blockbuster. We couldn’t find any movies to rent, so we walked over to the TV section and decided to try out LOST. We got the first 2 disks of season one. We proceeded to have a LOST marathon…we got so addicted after the first episode that we continued to watch it non-stop for 5 hours!!!

2. I am obsessed with Charlie – I think he’s precious, he loves Claire, and I love that he was a hobbit on Lord of the Rings.

3. I feel like I’m part of the gang… I mean I really feel like I “know” the characters. I’m pretty sure that we’d all be best friends.

4. I have a dream of being stranded on a beach and having to use my survival skills – I would love it (as long as I had a hair rubberband and some chapstick)

5. Aaron and I can’t wait to share the goodness with Chris… He’s never seen LOST (can you believe it?!) We are so pumped about tonight. I’ve got class, but I’m hoping we can get out early. If not, then we are going to have to get someone to tape it for us.

I LOVE LOST!

BlogARAMA!

I'm sitting in my teaching class and guess what we're learning about... BLOGS! Yep, they are the new thing in schools these days and supposedly they are great for teaching. Pretty cool huh? So, for all you teachers out there - check with your school district and then head on over to www.edublogs.org and create your very own teaching blog for your students.

Sweet,
Rachael

Legacy

This is the weekend I’ve been waiting for… ReUnion Weekend! Once a year Legacy Family Ministries (www.legacyfamily.org) puts together an amazing marriage retreat in Salado, Texas and they pull out all the stops: wonderful rooms, great catered food, inspirational speaker, lots of fun newly married couples, ect. Oh and did I mention that its subsidized by Baylor, so the cost for students is only $25.00 for two amazing evenings – We can only stay Friday night because we have to get ready for church…bummer! Last year was our first year to go (I worked for Legacy at the time) and right after we left we put it on our calendar for this year – Its seriously great!

I think one of the reasons I liked it so much last year is because Aaron and I were going through a little rough spot in our marriage. We’d been married about 7 months and the newness of it all had worn off. We were stuck in a rut filled with lots of quick fights, conflicts, and just an overall sense of frustration with being married. I literally hated it… not the being married part, but I hated the fact that we weren’t having fun anymore.

We got to the retreat not really knowing what to expect and we came away with a changed marriage. It was so much fun going on a stress free mini vacation where we all we had to do was sit back and go along for the ride. The speaker’s theme for the weekend was about solving conflict in new marriages. I felt like we could really relate to a lot of what he was saying (Now, I will be honest… Aaron wasn’t a huge fan of the speaker, but the message really helped me). I think Aaron’s favorite part was that we had a ton of free time to just hangout with each other and with the other couples there. Legacy purposely gives you a lot of free time because they want you to reconnect with your spouse and just “be” with eachother.

This year the speaker is Dr. Oliver (no, not Dub) and he’s speaking on keeping God at the center of the relationship. I’m excited to see what he has to say because sometimes its hard for us to keep God at the center… know what I mean.

My awesome brother Grant is going to come stay with Chris tonight – Grant’s a freshman at Baylor and I think he’s excited to get out of Penland for the night!!! (He’s in a 3 person room and its insanely small) They don’t have any big plans..probably just some video games tonight and then some sleeping in tomorrow morning. Its kind of weird that Grant is coming over to hangout with Chris while we’re gone. I remember when I used to drive home from college to stay with Grant when my parents went out of town – Oh how the times have changed!

Finally

For months Aaron and I have been talking about buying a new car, but neither one of us really wanted a car payment (who does right). We both kept trying to ignore the fact that our cars were on their last legs. But, on Sunday my car bit the dust. I accidentally backed into the tree outside of our house and completely bent the good ol' Coug's wheel base. My strongman husband ended up being able to "fix it" by bending it back the other way, but we both knew that it was time to find a new car.

We called his friend Christian who works at the Acura dealership in Dallas and told him what we wanted. My big things were 4 doors, a clicker to unlock the doors, cruise control, leather seats, and if possible a couple of glorious seat heaters. Aaron wanted all of those things and more (he likes things like low profile tires and super charged engines - don't ask me..I don't even pretend to know about that stuff). But anyways, Christian found us what we were looking for.. The 2008 Acura TSX.

Its an amazing car - I think I'm in love with it already! It even has blue tooth for my phone and xm radio..Amazing Inventions! The fun thing is that it all comes standard and so we didn't have to pay "extra" for any of it! We decided to lease the car for 3 years instead of buy it because we aren't really settled in life yet. We have no idea what we are going to do in a year or two...We dream about moving somewhere and who knows if we're going to need 4 wheel drive, snow tires, or maybe we won't even need a car at all. So, I think leasing was really the best option for us and it keeps our payments really low...another huge plus for us!

So, If you need an Acura give me a call and I'll hook you up with our good friend Chach (yep, that's what he goes by)

Peace,

Rachael

A good read..or two

Over the Holidays I read a couple good books that I'm crazy about and I want you to know about them.

The first one is called "The Myth of the Christian Nation." It was amazing and it truly changed my whole view of American Politics. It opened my eyes to so many scriptures that I hadn't really put much thought into.

Here's the synopsis from Amazon.com, "Arguing from Scripture and history, Dr. Boyd makes a compelling case that whenever the church gets too close to any political or national ideology, it is disastrous for the church and harmful to society. Dr. Boyd contends that the American Evangelical Church has allowed itself to be co-opted by the political right (and some by the political left) and exposes how this is harming the churchs unique calling to build the kingdom of God. In the course of his argument, Dr. Boyd challenges some of the most deeply held convictions of evangelical Christians in America for example, that America is, or ever was, a Christian nation or that Christians ought to be trying to take America back for God."

I love how Dr. Boyd is not Anti-America... instead he's just Pro-Christian. Love, Love, Love it. If you want a copy, just let me know. I think my mom bought out Barnes and Noble and she's been giving them away to everyone she meets!!!

The second book was a gift from one of my besties (love you Kat!) and it was great too. Its called "The Irrisisteble Revolution; Living as an ordinary radical" by Shane Clairborne. Here's what Rob Bell has to say about him and his book, "Be warned, my friends: Shane is a poet, a friend, a brother—but underneath it all, he’s a prophet with a fire in his belly and a story to back it up. If you listen—or in this case, read—you will not be the same.– Rob Bell, author, Velvet Elvis

Some of you may have heard of him and everything that's going on with The Simple Way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you don't know about it yet, then I'd encourage you to check out this website http://www.thesimpleway.org/ Seriously..you HAVE to check it out!

M'asselema,
Rachael

Talladega Nights

I’m just sitting here watching a little Talladega Nights with my family - Shake and Bake!

Sorry its been a long time since my last post. Lets see…We’ve been to Amarillo, Santa Fe, back to Rockwall, and finally back to Waco. We had a blast with Aaron’s family in Amarillo! I think everyone’s favorite was snow skiing though. Chris loved snowboarding and it was so fun watching him. Aaron is the best skier that I’ve ever seen and he did an awesome job teaching Chris. The snow was amazing, but I do wish that it had been a little warmer. The first day we were there it was only 8 degrees at the bottom of the mountain and at the top is was down to 3 degrees (yikes!) In fact, the weather was so bad that the 4 hour drive from Amarillo to Santa Fe turned into 8 hours. We passed 2 or 3 jack knifed semi’s, watched cars to 360’s on the road, and even slid around a little bit ourselves.

While we were in Santa Fe we went to the Camel Rock Casino. It was my first experience gambling and it was pretty amazing. I put $3 into a poker slot machine and ended up winning $127 - Not bad huh?! Too bad that everyone else lost their money.
Mmmm random thought…My parents let us borrow their fabulous Lincoln Navigator for trip. It was SO nice and my favorite thing about it were the seat heaters. My next car MUST have seat heaters! I’m really into the Nissan Altima ß do they come with seat heaters?

Hehehehe…We are watching the part where Ricky Bobby is running around in his underwear trying to put out the nonexistent fire. “Help me baby Jesus, help me Tom Cruise, help me Oprah Winfrey!” This is such a funny movie!

Things at work have been going crazy. Ever since my boss took a job at Truett, I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I literally didn’t have 5 minutes to myself today. I miss the good ol’ days of Dr. Hardage! He kept our office so chill and relaxed and I loved it. Speaking of work - I’ve got free tickets to the Baylor President’s Prayer Breakfast on Friday morning. If you’re interested let me know (just be aware that it starts at 6:30 am - boo!) The only reason I’m going is because I’ll get to leave work at 3:00 that day since I’m going into “the office” 2 ½ hours early.

Last but not least, I start my alternative certification classes on Monday. Yep, I’m going to become a teacher! I’ve kept this kind of quiet because I didn’t want to say anything before things were final. I’ve been praying about this for a few years and I just finally felt a peace about going back to school. I’m going to be in class Tuesday and Thursdays from 5:00 - 9:00 pm and then on Saturdays from 9:00 - 4:00. Ughhh and that schedule is going to last from January to May. But, it will all be worth it in the end…I know that I’m supposed to be a teacher and so I’m really excited to get started! I’m going to start out teaching elementary school and then I might move up to middle school and/or high school. I really want to teach Reading and Language Arts, but I’d also love to teach 2nd or 4th grade.
Alright I better get back to the movie…

“That Just Happened,”
Rachael