The Coolest Thing I've Seen (today at least...)

I'm not a big "go green" person. I mean I'm pro it, but I don't do crazy things to try to be green. I use recycled paper/post its, I recycle my ink cartridges, and I do have re-usable shopping bags (and I remember to take them to the grocery most of the time). But today I became a fan of Printworks multipurpose paper! They apparently feel very strongly about replacing the trees they use to make paper and are doing their best to do something about it. I was pulling out paper today to put in my printer when out came a small ziplock baggie of seeds! They actually include seeds in each reem of paper so you can go plant them! How cool is that?!



Pretty sweet huh? I guess the flip/cynical side of this is that the company is trying to deflect any blame or criticism for cutting down trees. "You got a problem with us? Plant a tree!" Or perhaps they're just trying to get their customers to provide more trees for them to cut down & use to make paper. Can't you just see the execs up in their offices, "Hmm...how can we appear to be environmentally friendly and also get our customers to do the planting work for us? Ahha! We'll give them seeds...two birds with one stone!" A little ironic isn't it? They give you seeds just so in a few years they can cut down the trees. Hmmm.

Well, I still think it's pretty sweet. They won me over.

Sisters Married: 1, Weeks of Camp Ahead: 9

This past weekend my sister became Mrs Grobe! She & Robert got married at Roddy Tree Ranch in Hunt, TX & it was a wonderful weekend & beautiful wedding! Here's some of my favorite pics for the interested (some are other people's that I copied off facebook so forgive the poor quality):

Beautiful bride!

First dance!

Father/daughter dance.

Sister of the Bride/Maid of Honor, aka MOH1. :)

Our fam.

The whole fam! All the Grobes & all the Nelsons, et al (you can tell it was a friend of the groom's who took this picture--they cut off half our family)!

The Nelsons & the new son.

The Grobes & their new daughter.

Silly wedding party. Mostly silly girls, the boys were not so silly.

And now, I'm in Bartlesville, OK for our staff training camp. The week is going wonderful so far--the Lord has provided an awesome team this summer! On Saturday we'll head up to Missouri to begin our first official week of camp! Please pray for safe travel & good health over the next 9 weeks, and also that we would be willing & available to serve the Lord in whatever ways He gives us to serve Him!

Thank you! Hope you're having a good beginning of summer yourself!

Three Peas in a Pod

Check out these awesome pictures! My sweet friend Rachel took these of my two good friends, Sarah, Dawn & I. I wanted to do something fun for the three of us before I left for the summer & then moved in the fall & when I realized we didn't really have any good pictures of the three of us I called Rachel & set up a surprise photo shoot! I told the girls to wear boots & rodeo/country western dance type outfits & to come to my house! Rachel met us there & the fun ensued!

Rachel is such an awesome photographer! I wanted to share these with you to show off her mad skills & our fun time!



The Lord sure has blessed me through these girls' friendship! I will miss them dearly when I move! And in case you haven't heard...I am still moving in the fall, but not to Dallas anymore! I'm moving to College Station, where I'll be on staff with Grace Bible Church! This is the church I went to in college and I'm beyond thrilled to be moving back to work with the youth group there!

Hope you all have a good long weekend!

In 48 hours...

The countdown is in mere days & hours until the season finale event of LOST! I was really worried that this season was just going to be weird-crazy, like the time travel at the end of the fourth season of Felicity or the season of Alias (third maybe?) with the Rembaldi juice. JJ Abrams' shows always seems to start strong but use all their good material too quickly at the beginning. Don't get me wrong, I still love Felicity & Alias, but if you've watched them, you know what I mean. But anyway...this season of LOST has definitely been crazy, but it's been good-crazy! And crazy-good! :) I've ceased to be surprised by anything that happens on the island or that the island itself can do...bring it on! Oh I can't wait till Wednesday night!

Angela's Last Day

Yesterday was my friend and office-mate Angela's last day at Worldview. In a little over a week she'll be having a baby! For the last three years we've stared at each other almost every day--our desks face each other, with only her gargantuan computer monitor between us.


Doesn't she looks quite comfy sitting in this chair with her feet up? She doesn't usually sit like this at the office I made her do it for the picture. :) It's been quite a learning experience for me to share an office with a pregnant lady. I've learned some things I wish I hadn't. The funniest/coolest the other day was when I was sitting next to her & noticed her belly jump! The baby had the hiccups! It was so cool to get to see & also to put my hand on her belly & feel him move & hiccup. He should be here in a little over a week!

Don't do this.

This is the most useful, practical advice I've seen about how to avoid catching swine flu!
Thanks, Bonnie!

I solemnly swear I am up to no good.

I really really want to see this Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago this summer!


Who's with me?

April Happenings

If I haven't confessed this lately, allow me to now...my issue with blogging is that I feel like I have to have something funny or entertaining to write about or in the very least pictures to show in order to make my blog reader-worthy. I truly do enjoy reading about other people's new couches, cats, kid's latest tricks but I just feel silly writing about everyday events. I'm trying to get better. So here's a photo blog of sorts of the last few weeks.

Easter.
I got to go to Austin for the Thursday before Easter to spend the night with the HELKs--my last group of college roommates. Somehow I don't have any pictures from that event. Someone else did...need to get them... Erin (the E in HELK) came back to Midland with me to see her family & were gracious to invite me to spend a couple of Easter meals with them! Such a fun family! Saturday night my friend Sarah had an Easter egg hunt to which I contributed several dozen confetti eggs. Here's how we looked after the "hunt" (read: "battle").



Teen CBS.
TCBS ended mid-April with a big circle "camp fire" time of music & sharing. I was blessed to hear how the kids had grown that year & how their walks with the Lord had been strengthened through the study of His word. They made me a cool book filled with random pictures of Midland friends and a note from each of the leaders and kids. It'll definitely be a treasure when I'm missing my Midland friends next year! Here's our group of leaders eating yogurt together after our last Bible study.


And here's my friends Sarah & Dawn at the same event.


Let's see...this weekend...my sister is getting married in May & we gave her a bridal shower this weekend. We had dinner at this awesome place in Houston--Berry Hill Baja Grill--awesome fajitas!


Sunday some dear friends who met while serving together with Worldview got married. It was so fun to get to see some other dear friends at the wedding! Corrie (left) served a couple summers as a small group leader & Rachel (right) & I got to serve as female staff directors together...a summer like none other! :)


Need I say more?


And with the bride, Janise Medina Cookston. :)

And that brings us up to just a few days ago. :) Happy Friday eve to all!

This is my current favorite video.

If you have a dachshund you'll want to watch this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcL6-mjRNk

Leadership Muster

Every March Worldview Academy brings in the camp directors & leadership staff to have a weekend of planning, fellowship & meetings to get ready for the summer. This past weekend we drove down to Lake LBJ to stay at some dear friends lake house and mustered the troops. :)

See how excited we are about camp starting in less than 70 days! Here is the east coast leadership team. Our camp director, Brandon, me (the associate director), Cara (female staff director) and Nathan (male staff director).

And here's the whole team--west and east coast combined. I'm so thankful for these people the Lord has provided for this ministry who have also become such dear friends!

The only one missing from the "whole team" pic is my friend & office-mate, Angela (pictured right). She's about to have a baby in May, so her responsibilities this summer will be a bit different.

We had dinner at this fun place in Marble Falls--River City Grill was its name I think. I highly recommend it if you're in the area!





Hope you all have a great day & week!

Happy Spring!

help me please.

OK so I went to cutestblogontheblock.com because it seemed the place to go to get a cute blog. And I figured out how to "add" the background but why did the middle part not change? Help me (Lynny)!!

Well maybe I figured it out....do I just change the colors until I like it?

When it rains it floods...and other random thoughts.

I find it a little ironic that in a town dominated by wealthy engineers there are no rain gutters. Granted, it rains very infrequently here in West Texas, but on the rare occasion that it does rain (like this week for instance) it rains a lot! And so it floods because there are no gutters here. The streets are also shaped like V's so that all the water gathers in the middle of the street. This is ok until you have to make a left hand turn. The people here don't seem to mind so much...probably because there are more really big pick up trucks here than anywhere else. Everyone here's got one because it's "for the ranch" or "for the boat" you know? I thought when I moved here that the chamber of commerce must hand out free boats & ranches to all it's citizens. Alas, I have not received either yet. I still have hope though.

Yea for it being Friday! I'm dog sitting for 5, maybe 6 dogs this weekend! Three in one family & 2-3 in another. Hopefully these gigs will be lucrative enough to pay for the gas of driving back & forth to feed & let the dogs out. :)

Lost was a repeat this week...but seeing Sawyer's new domestic side again was no trouble. He just gets hotter all the time. New episode next week...hopefully we'll find out who the baby is! Or something else big will happen and we won't even care that our questions were never answered!

Hope you all have a good weekend! Don't get swept away in the flood!

Hello friends,
I created this blog years ago but never used it because all the blogs I followed were on xanga & it was easier to follow them through xanga! But alas, for some reason all my friends are now in other blog worlds so I figure this is the easiest way to follow them! The first 10 minutes of my work day are "coffee & blogs" time. I go through my bookmarked blog friends & read about their new houses, lives, babies, ministries & adventures. So here's my attempt to blog about mine (all of the previously mentioned things except babies of course...except maybe if I blog about a friend's kid since it seems I have more preggo friends than non these days!).

So grab a cup of coffee & we'll pretend we're spending the first few minutes of our day together! :)