Sometimes...

...when everything is going wrong, it probably means your doing something right...
then all you can do is laugh about it.

CYT Presents The Sound of Music

I am so proud of my little sister Laura. Last weekend she participated in her second CYT musical, The Sound of Music. She played a Von Trapp Partygoer and a Catholic School Girl. I hear that the play was outstanding! Matthew and I have yet to make it to one of her performances but we are hoping to make it to the next one this fall, Beauty and the Beast! Laura is getting to be a wonderful little actress and has a beautiful voice. She is planning on taking singing lesions this summer to keep improving! Way to go Laura!

Here are some pictures I got from my mom of my beautiful little sister.

On Mothers Day

Here in Great Falls the majority of my friends are young moms. Even though I do not have children of my own yet, it is still weird for me to see life from this new angle, The Mom. As I was driving home from a lunch with all my good friends and all their children I found myself thinking about my mom as a mother, a woman, a friend, a wife. I have always known that she plays all of these roles but not from this prospective. Did I drive her crazy when I was two, just like every other little kid? When I was running around in the restaurant did she give my dad that look of, “please go get our daughter, I am just too tired to stand up and run after her AGAIN.” If she did I never knew it. At 22, some of the things that I remember and know about my mom is, how fun and special it was to watch the long version or Pride and Prejudice in her bed when we were sick. Seeing my mom at every soccer game, Martial Arts event, recital, every horse show and every 4-H meeting, knowing I had her full support. The excitement of letting our imaginations soar as she read out loud to Sarah’s and me as we snuggled on the couch for hours. My Mom’s loving and patient arms when I have a meltdown and can’t see the solution to a problem and just need to talk the whole thing out. My mom was there to help me pick out my homecoming dresses, my prom dresses, and my wedding dress. She is a friend who I love to talk to for hours, get baking tips from, and dream with. She is always full of brilliant ideas and advice. Thank you Mom for all you do and have done. Thank you for who you are, I couldn’t have it better.

CRAZY

Snow again! It started snowing last night and still has not stopped! Nothing makes me wish we were back in California like snow in May. Tomorrow I am helping with the Harvest Springs table at the National Day of Prayer setup downtown…of course it is supposed to be outside! I am praying the sun will come out and it will be an amazing day, although I am sure it will be anyway if my focus is in the right place and not on myself and the weather. It is only Wednesday and it has been a crazy, but wonderful week. Saturday I learned how to make baklava from Jackie Pappas who is Greek, and I got to learn with Dana! While we were baking, the dogs had a play date, and we were totally worn out by the time we got home. Not done yet, we went to a Garry Allen, Jack Ingram, and Josh Thompson concert that night with another good friend of ours. We had church Sunday where we had the privilege of watch our two friends, a husband/wife couple, get baptized and then go out to lunch at Fuddruckers to celebrate. A great workout and a meeting about our booth for the National Day of Prayer on Thursday started the day Monday, and the rest of the day was filled with making poster boards for the NDP and invitations for my sister Sarah’s bridal shower. Monday ended with getting together with girl friends and putting ribbon on bookmarks for Thursday while sipping white chocolate hot chocolate and eating brownies, with the wind howling outside. Last night we had our squadron spouses meeting at Macaroni Grill! What a fun week and it is only half over!

So proud of my baklava!

Dana and Jackie making baklava

Dana, Heather and me and the concert

Snow! Yuck

Well, it turned out my friends were right. Thursday we had a full blown winter storm that lasted all day. The weather was so bad Matthew had to have a helicopter take him out to his alert yesterday! Other than the fact that I don’t really like them flying in such bad wind, I am so jealous! How fun to get to go on a helicopter ride to work! Maybe now that all of our friends are graduating from pilot training, and we know at least four helicopter pilots, I will get a ride one of these days (hint hint). At least I have a little bit of spring right in my home. I have been growing seeds for my garden and in the last week they have all poked their little heads out. It is so fun to see them grow!

TO SAVE A LIFE MOVIE

I wanted to share with all of you this exciting new project Matthew and I are involved with in our church here in Great Falls. As many of you might know, Matthew and I are leaders for the youth group, and that is how we first heard about this project. Our church, Harvest Springs is putting on a city-wide event to show the movie To Save A Life. It is an amazing movie that focuses on issues that teens face today in school, family, and personal lives. This started off as just a movie night for our youth group and has turned into an exciting event to host the students of Great Falls at the Mansfield Theater in downtown for a free showing of this movie. This theater holds 1,700 people and we are also going to have an overflow area. This is all taking place May 12 at 7:00pm. That is only 14 days away! We have so much to do! I am asking for prayer. Please be in prayer for our church staff, for open hearts in the schools and community and for the volunteers that are helping. Also, that we can get things that need to be done finished quickly, and we remember God is in total control and this is for His glory. We are so excited about this and the major change that can come from this movie.

At the top of our blog you can watch a movie trailer. Enjoy!

Bake Sale

Last week the spouses of the 490th MS had a bake sale! It was so much fun. Some of us got together Tuesday night to bake and talk, and talk and bake. We had a great assortment of items, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, fudge toffee bars, cupcakes, one of the ladies even made cinnamon rolls from scratch the morning of! They were amazing; I can't wait to get the recipe. We made about $100.00 profit. We even had competition the day of with a breakfast burrito sale downstairs. The money we made goes toward welcome gifts for new families, baby gifts... It is the first bake sale I have ever organized and I am very happy with how it turned out. Last but not least I got to meet more of the guys in Matthew’s squadron, which is great because now I know who he is talking about when he tells me about his day. I can’t wait for our next one!

PS I totally forgot about my camera so I didn’t get any pictures, bummer!