date night!

Last night, Eric and I had a date--woo! It was lovely. :) We went for dinner and a movie--a classic combo--and ayre some Thai food at Southcenter before going to see Brave.

Highlights: the gal dressed as Merida who took our tickets for the movie, the extraordinarily long line of people waiting to go see the movie, and just how fantastic the film was. It was wonderful!

I wanted to be like Queen Elinor as I felt like I've already been like Merida. I was delighted by the mother/daughter story and the family dynamics. It was so lovely! Eric and I both laughed a ton and Eric almost cried while I cried several times.

If you haven't considered seeing this movie, I highly encourage you to change your mind! It is wonderful!

gradumacations

Tonight, Eric and I will attend our fourth graduation in ten days. Fortunately, I think it will be our last one for awhile, but holy cow...so many!

I am very proud of everyone who we know that graduated (& will graduate this evening). To Tony and Gwen (college graduates and siblings): I have much faith that you will both be excellent teachers! To Erica and Gracie: I am so excited for you to start college. You two are already leaders, and I feel better about the future knowing you'll both have a hand in making it great. To Mark and Elisha: I know you'll make great men because you are both trying to learn all that you can now. Always be teachable. :)

Kudos to you all!

babies and cannibalism

Me: Whenever I see cute babies with chubby cheeks, I just want to chew on them...

Eric: Have you been snorting bath salts?

This *may* be a good reason to hold off on having kids for awhile.

upcoming

We have a couple of big youth events coming up this summer, and I'm getting really excited about it! The first one is coming up really soon in early July, and it will be a missions trip. The second big event will be summer camp in late August.

Because Eric and I work at the same place, we can't take off time together, so I'm going on the missions trip and he's heading up the camp. We've asked one of the young adults to help chaperone with him. She'll be great!

For the missions trip, we're going to be traveling all over! We'll be at a conference in Sacramento, then we'll join up with Bridgetown Ministries in Portland for an event, then we'll wrap up the trip in Yakima. It's going to be exhausting, but I'm excited too. I just hope we can get more kids signed up! :)

Summer camp is always a fun event, and the timing for this one makes it right before school starts back up, which we're hoping will get our teens pumped up and ready to start spiritual wildfires at their schools. Also, we hope that we will be able to have non-Christian students attend and hear about God. So many hopes for this summer!

Together, these events will cost about $500. If you are reading this blog and would like to bless the youth of Rainier Valley, consider helping financially. We can always add to the scholarship fund!

If you do want to contribute, please send a check (w/ youth scholarship fun in the memo line) to:

Trinity Life Center
4402 S. Graham Street
Seattle, WA 98118

Thank you!

mw2

On Saturday, I had the fun times of hanging out with a few different gals from the youth group, and one of the things we did was play video games. We started with Left 4 Dead 2 then progressed to death matches on Modern Warfare 2.

It ended up being one girl against three because we kept trading off one of the controllers and she beat us all. This was my first time playing MW2, and I thought out was such fun that I asked Eric to play with me, thinking that I could hold my own while conveniently forgetting that he probably has days of practice on me.

After the first couple of rounds, I was getting really frustrated, so we went to the smallest map, turned the radar on, and Eric resorted to simply knifing instead of using any of his firearms. I still lost, but only by about six kills. ;) Yeah...he's got gaming skills!

intro to Rainier Valley

Last night, Eric and I went out to dinner with a friends of mine from high school. His sister, who lives in the area, is going to China soon, so he came back from Michigan to spend time with her before she takes off this summer.

This could only mean two things: 1) hanging out, 2) Ethiopian food. My friend and his sister are friends with some Ethiopians who run a restaurant, so we decided to meet there. Lo and behold, said restaurant is only a mile or so south of us on Rainier Avenue.

So we met up and got to meet the owners of the restaurant and some other friends of my friend's who met us for dinner, and it was all well and good. Delicious food!!

At the end of dinner, cop cars and aid cars began screaming down Rainier Avenue. None of us knew what was going on, but later, we found out that there had been a shooting down the street--the second time in a week at that location--and that the SPD gang unit was called in. Welcome to the neighborhood?

In all honesty, this news broke my heart. We live in such a mission field with needs all around us, and there is so much brokenness just down the street. Trying to figure out where to start or what to do to meet these needs is overwhelming. Please pray with us to know how best to approach our community.

the dude date

Eric and I hadn't been on a date in awhile, so we decided at the end of work on Friday to reschedule my chiropractic appointment and have a night to ourselves instead. We ended up going to Southcenter for dinner and a movie, and halfway through eating, I realized that we were on a "dude" date.

See, we grabbed food at Johnny Rocket in the mall, then we went to see The Avengers, which, I have to say, is an amazing movie. LOVE Joss Whedon. :) Anyway, burgers and an action flick definitely make for a good time for guys, and although I highly enjoyed our evening, I told Eric that the next time we go on a date, we're totally getting pedicures.

HA! Just kidding, the idea of a stranger touching my feet squicks me out. Even though I probably could use a professional pedicure, I ain't gettin' one if I can help it!


Anyway, if you haven't see this movie yet, I highly recommend it as it is absolutely delightful. The action sequences were stellar, there were great one liners, and most of the acting was pretty dang spectacular.

On a side note, this film doesn't pass the Bechdel test because even though there are multiple women in the film--with names!--who talk about things other than men, none of them--as far as I can remember--talked to each other, and that is a shame. They are strong characters, except for the form fitting jumpsuits and wedge heels they all seem to wear, and I would have liked to see them in the same conversations. Still, I appreciate that they aren't always needing rescuing.

On another side note, after we got to the mall, I realized that I hadn't brought chapstick, so we spent 20 minutes roaming the mall to try to find a place for me to buy some--I'm kind of ocd about chapstick--and all we found were tubes of lip balm for $8. Srsly? Lip balm?

On an even different side note, I also noticed once I sat down for dinner that the jeans I was wearing had a tear under the right butt pocket that I had forgotten about prior to dressing for the date. I was VERY glad that I had brought along an extra large sweatshirt so I was able to wear that and hide the hole easily. Phew!

If you've seen The Avengers, what do you think about it? Like me, did you fall in love with the Hulk? He easily became my favorite character, and I didn't know it was possible to love a villain as much as I enjoyed watching Loki be, well, Loki.