Life with Gling

So much happened this weekend….and I couldn’t wait to post about everything. So here’s the rundown…

Friday:
Runinng the Greenville booth at the Peoria Chiefs/Hawk Nelson Concert
Steak-n-Shake
Overnight at my parents house

Saturday:
A morning spent with my grandma
Subway Pizza
Run-through for the our first church service at the church plant
Spending time with church friends
Malcom in the Middle re-runs

Sunday:
A GREAT first service for Metro Community Church-Vandalia!
Remembering all of my words for my solo
Over 100 adults for the first service…and over 30 kids in Adventureland
Cuddly kittens that like to nap with me on the couch
Cheesy shows on VH1
Getting an A on my final exam
Getting in A in my first graduate class….yay!
Mario’s pizza
A cozy night at home with the hubby.

A wonderful weekend….

So it’s been a great last few days. This weekend was mainly spent working on homework…but it wasn’t too bad, and I got it all done. Last night we had the Cox’s (Steve and Nicole) over for supper and games. I’m so glad that they live close enough to hang out with on a regular basis! We pigged out on soup and cake…and played karaoke revolution and Pop 5. Pop 5 is a version of Cranium…and quite possibly the best game ever…or at least one of them. Tonight my brother Greg is stopping by and staying over because he’s in the area for a conference. This is great…because we don’t get to see our brothers and sisters as much as we’d like. So it should be a good time. In other exciting news…my tattoo has finally healed and it’s finally set in that it’s not coming off of my foot. It freaked me out at first…but then I was excited because I think it’s pretty awesome. Apparently nobody ever thought that Jared and I would go out and get tattoos…but we did…and it was fun!

Ok…back to work I must go…adios!

It’s 4:15…Friday…and I get to go home soon! This week went super fast…but I’m still ready for the weekend. We had our first big event as a new church this week too….Kids Bible Kamp. It went so well…131 kids throughout the week…and at least 12 accepted Christ! It was such a nice reminder as to why we’re starting this new church. The community around here is so hungry for a church like this…and I honestly can’t wait to see what’s going to happen! Our first preview service is next weekend. Jared and I are both helping out with the praise band/vocal team…and that’s been going really well too. We’ll see what I’m thinking when I have to sing my solo! (Yikes!)

So no big plans for the weekend…but that’s because I’m confining myself to the house until I finish my research paper for class. It’s about violence in the workplace…and it shouldn’t be too hard…but it’s been so long since I’ve had to write papers. It might be hard to keep myself in the house though…because the weather is AMAZING today. The skies are bright blue…no clouds…and it’s nice and cool outside. Such a rarity for July in Greenville. Maybe I’ll take my laptop out on the front porch and write my paper out there for a bit.

Anyway…more updates later…adios!

So we’ve been travelers for the past 2-3 weeks…and we’re finally home! Don’t get me wrong…I absolutely love going places…but I sure love being at home in our house. This weekend we traveled up to Chicago for Dan Wolfe’s wedding. (Jared and Dan work together and graduated together.) It was a lovely wedding and a fun reception too. As always, I loved getting all fancied up in a new dress and seeing Jared all cute in his dress clothes. Since we were in Chicago, we figured we’d stay the night and spend Saturday in Chicago…since we don’t get up there as often as we’d like. We stayed at a Red Roof Inn. I know…I know…doesn’t seem like the nicest place to stay. However…we stayed there upon recommendation from hotels.com….and you know what…not too shabby! The entire chain is re-doing their hotels, and it was one of the coolest hotels we’ve stayed at. Anyway…Saturday we slept in and headed over to IKEA for lunch a little shopping. Then we drove downtown and cought the “L” to Wrigley Field. We didn’t buy Cub’s tickets in advance…but there are always scalpers selling them on the street…so we figured we’d find something that way. And if not…no big loss. So we wandered around for about an hour…and quickly noticed that tickets were WAY overpriced. Some guy was selling standing room only tickets for $100…what the heck?! Anyway…we finally found a guy who needed to get rid of his tickets and it was almost the 4th inning…so he dropped the price low enough for us to justify buying them. They ended up being really good seats and we sat next to some cool Cub’s fans too. The Cub’s won 9-3…so it was a fun game and we’re glad we went. We caught the train back downtown afterwords and played around in the fountain and Millenium Park for a bit…and then headed back home. We made a quick stop in Bloomington to see Jared’s family…but had to hit the road pretty quickly. We got back close to 2 a.m. last night…but it was a super-fantastic weekend. So now we’re relaxing around the house…something we haven’t done in quite some time. The cats are both asleep and we’re watching today’s Cub’s game on tv. Good times…

So it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve posted much of anything…but that’s because we’ve been gone! 2 weeks ago we went to Cornerstone again…which as always…was amazing. Jared went along with me to help with the Greenville booth, which was nice. This was also the first year that we didn’t camp out. Instead, we stayed with my aunt all week…which was great! (Especially since it rained and was cold all week.) We saw a lot of great bands (Family Force 5, David Crowder, Toby Mac, Switchfoot…etc…etc…) and had a lot of yummy Cornerstone food (corndogs, elephant ears, etc…etc…). After a week there…we came back home for a few days. We cleaned, enjoyed the 4th of July with friends, and packed again. On Thursday we flew to Las Vegas for 4 days there with Jen and Mac (2 of our friends). We absolutely loved it…and got to do lots of fun things. Including, but no limited to….
-Beatles “Love” Cirque Du Soleil show
-Fashion Show Mall (Fashion shows every 2 hours!)
-Walking around all of the amazing hotels and resorts
-Vegas Buffets
-Freemont Street (the original Strip)
-The Riviera (the hotel we stayed at)
-The fountains at the Bellagio
-The pirates at Treasure Island
-The volcano at the Mirage
-LOTS of walking
-Studio 21 Tattoos (yes…that’s right…we got tattoos…and they’re awesome!)

There’s so much more to Vegas than you’d realize…there’s so much history there. It was fun to just walk around and see everything…because there’s so much to see. I’m actually really excited to go back some day. So that’s what we’ve been up to…good times!