Ladies Fellowship

It's the Christmas season and we have been busy!!

The last couple of weeks of the semester I was a teacher to 13 very wild children! They tested me more those last three weeks than they did the first 3 months!! I think they had too much turkey and then they couldn't get Christmas out of their minds!! But it's all over! Well for the next two weeks at least! I can't believe I have taught a whole semester already...it flew by!! Even though I really need this break I know I will miss them all dearly!

We were busy with church things as well this past month. We had our Christmas Cantata last Sunday and also the school had their Christmas play the Friday before that.

Two Friday's ago we had our Ladies Christmas Fellowship. That's what I wanted to blog about today! The third Thursday of every month we have what we call Ladies Fellowship!

It is such a wonderful time!

All the ladies of the church are invited but normally it's just a handful either because of work or family commitments or because a lot of our members live a half hour away or so. We meet at the church and just have a nice time of fellowship and talk about the latest drama or stories in our lives and then our pastor's wife (more on her in a minute) gives us a devotional. After that we usually eat dessert and then we pass out the missionary letters that the church has gotten in the last month and we take turns each reading one out loud. It is a great time to keep track of what is going on with our church's missionaries! Then we pray for them and the needs that they have expressed in their letters!

I love this night! I have grown so close to the ladies in our church already and this night is always special. I learn so much too! It is nice to be able to hear from our pastor's wife on a regular basis.

She is a godly, sweet, considerate, wonderful lady. I love her! She is always ready to listen and always wants to know about what's going on in your life the good, the bad...all of it. She has a good eye and can tell if you are having a hard time with something and will just walk right up and give you a hug! I grew up in a larger church and although our pastor's wife was a great example to me just by watching her and listening when she did teach us ladies, it just isn't possible to have as close of a relationship as you can in a smaller church. I love it! I could go on and on about her.

One hilarious thing about her that makes me laugh...is that she is a texting QUEEN! haha...she is so funny! She loves to text! When I first moved out here in one of the first conversations we had she said to me.."So, do you text??" I said "Yes." She says "Great!! Me too!!" We have been texting ever since!

This is her and I at our Christmas Ladies Fellowship. I adore her!

The Christmas ladies fellowship is a little different than the others throughout the year. For one, EVERYONE comes! Two, we do it at someones home instead of at the church. Three, ALL the girls in the church are invited...babies, kids, teens. The other's throughout the year are just for the adult ladies so this is a special time for the girls! We are all together!

One of the things that we do is we all write in Christmas cards for all the missionaries and then they are sent out to be a blessing, so each of our missionaries knows that the ladies of our church have been praying for them throughout the year!

Then there is food! Lots of food! We all brought a little something!

My beautiful bestie!

Then there's my crazy sister!

Katie with Leilani at her first Christmas ladies fellowship!

Emily and Katrina Stager and I! I love these sweet girls!

Michelle and Kathy Stager...both are sweet sweet friends!

Love these two teen girls! One is my sister so I have to love her! :) The other is our pastors oldest daughter, Julia! Great young ladies!

After we ate, we had our devotional time and then we had a gift exchange! It was so fun. We all brought gifts and then we played a white elephant game. It was too complicated to tell on here but you will be able to see from the pictures below how fun it was!

Renee, we had the fellowship at her house this year! I love this pic of her!

There was a lot of laughing! This picture is so funny! I just had to post it!

The little girls had gifts too! They were very happy!

haha my mother in-law with her gift!

:)

Taking it all in!

Julia was happy with her earrings!

Having a great time!

Chell loved her gift!

At the end of the night we took a group photo! This is all of us(minus one or two that were sick or weren't able to make it)....(and plus Bryce..he isn't one of the ladies but he is too cute to stay out of the picture) :)

The Bethel Baptist Church ladies!

Christmas is approaching quickly!!! It's so hard to believe!

I have some quick exciting news to share that has nothing to do with this post.....but......

I get to go home tomorrow!!!!!

For a long time now I wasn't planning on going home this Christmas. I was having a hard time with that but it just wasn't going to be possible because Julian has to work basically double the amount than normal during this month and all the way till Christmas eve. His company (UPS) doesn't allow anyone off during the holidays. But just this last week my parents told me that as a Christmas present they wanted to fly me out there this week for a few days..while Julian is working... because I would be home alone basically all week. It was such a surprise and a blessing!! I am so thankful and so excited to see them and all my friends back home.

I will be back to spend Christmas with my hubby though!!!!!!!

We are very excited about our first Christmas together!

Friendship...a wonderful part of life!

It's so crazy to think how fast time flies....

How many changes that you go through....

One of the best parts about life is having real, true, lifelong friends that go through these changes with you.

I have been blessed with so many of these kinds of friends!

But today I would like to dedicate this post to one in particular.

In the fall of my 8th grade year I met her. Our church held an Youth Conference every fall and it was a time when many different youth groups from across the country came to attend.

I do not remember actually meeting Julie Bowersock but I know that it was my 8th grade year.

I remember having fun with her and other girls from her church. Her father was the Pastor of a church in Baltimore, MD. We parted ways at the end of that week and if I remember correctly we didn't talk again until the next fall. We had a lot of things in common and when she came back again we picked up our friendship right where it left off. After that year, we promised to stay in contact. Of course, that was in the days before high schooler's had their own cell phones, facebooks, or even email! ...so we did the "old fashion" thing! We wrote letters!

Our friendship grew and grew.....

As we reached our older high school years we began calling more often. We made traditions. We sent each other Christmas and Birthday gifts. We knew all about each other's lives and friends and all the high school drama that each of us had! :) She stopped coming to the conferences after her sophomore year. Her church was small and as the few highschoolers that they did have got older...they eventually began to drift and soon there wasn't much of a group of teens to bring to the conference.

I still remember the last time she came. Her senior year her Dad brought her for a day and a half of the conference. He was on his way to a meeting in MI so he dropped her off on the way. Our goodbye was very tearful. We weren't sure when we would see each other again.

She was going off to a Christian college in California and I still had a year of high school to finish and then would be attending college in Indiana.

We promised to stay friends and we actually DID! :)

We shared our first date stories and eventually our first dates with the guys we would both marry....we shared everything. She has always been a friend that I could go to about anything.

By now, you might be thinking...why are you telling us all this...just wait its coming...:)

Even though we are only a week apart in age...she really beat me to it when it comes to getting married! At the end of her freshman year she met her "one." He was a senior. They dated long distance during her sophomore year and were engaged in the spring of that year.

The next fall, September 29, 2007, at the ripe young age of 19!!! (I still can't believe that)

She was married! I traveled out to Baltimore and stood as a bridesmaid in her wedding.

That was the last time we saw each other!

She was supposed to stand in my wedding as well...which is something that we both had always joked about. When we would say bye on the phone after talking....b/c we never knew when we would see each other next....I remember we would say...alright..."See you at your wedding." haha.... we said that way back in high school till a couple of months before my wedding...

Anyhow, it's a long story...but the company she works for told her that she could not have the days she asked for off to come to my wedding. They don't let people off on holidays...it's their busiest time and well we got married on a holiday weekend...so that was that....

We were both crushed....but life isn't always fair is it? :) It still makes me sad that she wasn't able to come!

Julie and her husband Jason live in Oregon which actually is only 5 hours from where we live!!

After all this time and distance...and her parents actually live in Sacramento which is only 1 hour and a half from us...which is even better!!!

Well....all that to announce to you....

Thursday she called to announce to me that they will be having a BABY!!!!!!

How amazing is that??!?!?

I know, you are probably not as excited as I am.....

but as we were talking I kept thinking...wow...we always dreamed and talked about our weddings and husbands....but we are past that and look at us now....

BABIES!!!

haha..no one get any ideas....not for me...yet... :)

The awesome part is....since we live so close I will be able to go to the baby shower and we will be able to share this stage too!!!!

This is Jason and Julie!

I am still trying to wrap my head around the whole baby thing! I guess before you get married it seems so far off. This the first of my friends my age to be having a baby! What a fun and exciting things we still have to look forward to!!!

I would like to say, once again, for those that may be a little over eager out there. (Trust me, we just had our five month anniversary and we have had plenty of "baby" comments already) Don't think that this post is me trying to say....our "baby" time is coming anytime soon!!! :)

What I am trying to say is....I am excited about what the future holds and I am thankful for the wonderful friends God has put into my life!!!

'tis the season...

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Ours was very very nice! I decided not to post my pictures...basically because it takes too much time to load pictures on here and I wanted to put these on instead. Anyhow, we celebrated (as I said before) with the Balatbat family. Everyone gathered at my in laws house and ate wonderful food (and yes there was turkey)! Filipino's love to cook and they always do things in HUGE amounts (at least my relatives).

Thanksgiving night, at midnight, Julian, Joyce (his sister) and I went to the outlets to start our black friday shopping! It was a crazy crazy experience! I LOVE black friday shopping! It is so fun to be out there with all those other crazy people! We got home around 3 a.m. and then we were up again at 9 to go shopping some more!

Saturday, was a day that I had been looking forward to for a long time!! We decided that we were going to go get our very first Christmas tree! I love Christmas and I have been excited about decorating for our first Christmas! So first thing Saturday morning we headed out to a local "tree lot"....

and we found our tree!!!

It was so fun! Even though there was no snow and actually it was raining...the little tree lot did feel very festive! :)

:)

Getting ready to take it home!

Michelle, my best friend, spent the entire day with us and we used her big truck to haul our tree home!

Carrying it in!

Up the stairs!

Let's just say, this moment, or this twenty minutes...which was about how long it took us to figure out the tree stand and get the tree to stand straight....was a very memorable time! One of those that you just won't forget...Julian "Babe, stop pulling it"..Me "I'm not pulling, you are pushing".... It was a very special! :)

yep...that's me...still holding it up!

then the fun part...all the stuff on the floor is the decorations we had yet to put out...

lights!

Did I mention it's our 1st Christmas and we are EXCITED!! :))

ornaments!

Finally Michelle was in a picture! Thanks for taking pictures all day for us Michelle! We love you!

It's our awesome tree topper! I love it!

We made a last minute decision on what the tradition would be for the "who puts the tree topper on"...we decided our entire family would do it together (all two of us) ...I'm not sure how that will work in the future, especially if we have several kids but we will cross that bridge later! :)

Love my moose couple...(passed down from my mother) btw most of my decorations were passed down! Including our tree skirt...which is definitely very special to me!!

Our stockings! I got these after last Christmas at an adorable store called Swoozie's!!

Love them!

Here's the finished product!

the nativity scene we had all during my childhood

Love this set...actually one of my bridal shower presents from my Mom! I just had to put them out...they are way too cute to be in the cupboard!

It's so perfect!!

It definitely is "beginning to look a lot like Christmas" around our home!

Looking forward to all that this Christmas season has in store!!!