Thanksgiving

May we all take some time to reflect this Thanksgiving on all that we have to be thankful for.

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18
¹⁶Be joyful always; ¹⁷pray continually; ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

We have been blessed with so much, and may we realize this...may we be content in where the Lord has us at this time in our lives, and know that this is exactly what He has planned for us in just this moment in time.

Thank you, Jesus, for all that you do for us each and every day. Thank you for the beautiful blessings you've provided us with in our lives and for knowing that you are there to protect and guide us along the way. Thank you for forgiving us and loving us. Thank you for shedding your blood for us on the cross so that we may be forgiven and be shown mercy.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Decorating our house!

One of our 'final touches' in having the house all come together has been a struggle...our kitchen! Oh, just because we painted one of our walls purple...which we LOVE! It was just a little tougher than expected to find table decor that brought it all together.

We recently found some fall colored napkins and some place settings from crate and barrel. There were some super inexpensive cute pumpkins from target that we tossed in. They all work well together...THEN a couple of weeks back, I hit Michael's with my mom and we found such cute (and inexpensive) final touches.

Here is my first attempt at an official centerpiece for our table!

so proud of my $.19 mini accents!

Here it is all set up for a family dinner night

Wanted to share these before we mix it up with a Christmas flavor ;)

Mom's Progress

As many of you know, my mom has recently had a single-bypass surgery. Completely out of the blue!!

Many of you were kept updated through my texts (so sorry for those that pay per incoming text! Something I just didn't think about.)

Here are a couple pics I took on my phone.

In her room, 1 day after surgery

...um here's where Tyler and I stayed her first night in her own room...F-U-N...let me tell you.

And here's a shot to show you how close we were to my mom's bed, or also how small the room was :0

about 1:30 or so AM the man just to the right of the room coded. It sounded like a heard of elephants rushing in the room and you could hear them using the paddles. Extremely interesting. Needless to say, that was not a very restful night of sleep. I think we were sore for at least 2 days after. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to Tyler for offering to stay with me (I didn't have to ask!). - AND not trying to say we were the only ones that had this type of sleeping arrangement during a hospital overnight stay! THANKS to each person that stayed with my mom overnight since the first day she was in the hospital!

BACK TO MOM - this was 3 days after surgery. We went on a walk down the hall.

...and she really didn't need the walker. She left it in the hallway to look in to a room we encountered along the way. We were nosey :)

And here's a pic from this past Sunday (11/15). She was anxious for me to send an 'update' to everyone.

She would like to thank everyone for their prayers, visits, phone calls - everything. As would I! Thanks so much!

..and she does love her calls and visits, so feel free to drop by the house or call (209-667-5923:) ).

Aloha ;)

...ahhhh...what a relaxing time spent in Hawaii! It has been a couple of months now, since our trip, so in posting these photos to share, we are getting to revisit our trip.

The trip was twofold; we first flew to Kauai with 13 others for work (6 days), then we flew back to Oahu and stayed right on the Waikiki beach for a few days of vacation - just the two of us ;)

While in Kauai, we stayed at a neat home just across the street from the Kekaha beach, and a dear friend of JAMZ' that I've known for about 7 years or so and Tyler had the opportunity to meet in Vegas earlier this year, was our hospitable host!

On our first day in, she took us out paddle boarding...

it was great to see some of the gang trying to paddle board! It appeared to be a balancing act, so I didn't try it; my equilibrium felt off that first day there

...we also headed out to another beach and we all had a great time just playing in the ocean, swimming, jumping waves, and just letting our hair down and letting out some good laughs!

...here are a few shots of our 'homes'

they (JAMZ and Kauai Pop Warner) rented 2 houses for us on the same property,

so half stayed in 1 home and half in the other.

here's Tyler on the balcony outside our room

playing on the 'walkway' between the houses

view of the other house from ours

view of the ocean from our front door

the side of our house, where we shared the dinner we made together one night

- here's a pic of my buddy Yvonne! Such a sweet person!

THEN WAS WORK...we actually worked 3 of the days we were there (1/2 day on day 1, and 2 full days) so it allowed for a LITTLE play in between :)

couple shot; 2 of us are married, one is engaged, and the other two are on their way to being engaged (in that order from right to left)

singles shot :)

proof that we were working! :)

on our way home from camp one day, we posed for some pics at a pineapple store...

...we all had a nice 'end of the season' dinner night out...

On our last night and full day there, we were invited out with Yvonne, my buddy :), to her family's camp grounds on the beach - about a 1 minute walk from our houses.

Boys played volleyball...girls sunbathed and we all took a little time to head in to the ocean a few last times as we all left the island on that last day (Monday)...

Here's a pic on our way to fly out!

We'll save the Oahu pics for another post - will try to do soon :)