My dog can text!

Below is a text that I got from Portland on my iphone before Darren took me out on my birthday date.


Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy your birthday dinner!

Love,
Portland

And my response:

To the cutest puppy ever!

Thanks for my birthday note. I'm excited about dinner. I even got my nails done. I wish you could come with your daddy and me but it would probably be boring for you.

Love,

Mommy

Yes folks! I've officially gone off the deep end!

October Birthdays

What happens when you and your S.O. have birthdays in the same month? It turns into a month long celebration of fun, drinks, and lots of good eats!

On my actual birthday, my coworkers took me out to a Thai lunch which was delicious.. And then Darren and I flew back to LA to meet family and friends. I was so proud of Darren for eating a full 10 course meal, meeting a ton of friends and kids, and meeting my family too. Fortunately, it went well. Other highlights from LA include visiting his cousin and seeing the set of Heroes, walking the hollywood hills via runyon canyon, and introducing Darren to his new favorite pub.

Here are some pics from Runyon Canyon. We wish we had Portland with us.



Then the following weekend it was Darren's birthday. I took Darren to an amazing dinner at Nick&Sam's which was awesome. They prepared a great dinner and provided complimentary champagne and a port wine. They also gave us a free bottle of wine after a mix-up in which we weren't allowed to use our own bottle that we brought in. For those in Dallas, the steak was incredible and the customer service is unparallel.

We finished up dinner and little did Darren know that I had planned a surprise party for him at my house, in which I invited all his closest friends. Fortunately, it was a complete success and Darren was blown away. I even got Darren's friends to bring some of the homebrew. Below are pics. Darren's friend Jenn got the cake, which I loved, making fun of Darren's use of social media...




We also spent Sunday with Darren's family, which was a nice time to sit around and celebrate our birthdays. I'm fortunate that they've embraced me wholeheartedly..

This past weekend Darren took me eat at Lola , which was an adorable French restaurant in a cute little house. We had four courses which included a duck breast and lamb loin. It was delicious.

The moral of the story, folk, is if you're going to share a birth month with your significant other, be sure to milk it for all its worth in that month or beyond.

I can't wait to celebrate our gifts for each other. Darren got me a wine making session at Swirll, which will be so fun when we make our own wine. And I got Darren two cooking classes for us at Sur la Table. I can't wait to post those pictures.

Can you see a theme: homebrew, wine, and amazing dinners! Yes that's why Darren and I are hurting to work it out.. :)

What I haven't been posting..

I know my few faithful loyal readers have noticed a certain piece of information missing on this blog.

A little over two months before I went to Brazil, one of my trip leaders wanted to get the troops rallied and he said something like "You're in marketing...can you come up with a rally cry or even a t-shirt logo to get our team unified?"

The first rule in marketing is that you never do things on your own. You always collaborate with someone. So I reached out to my team member, Darren, who works in advertising.

On a rainy day in March, we got together to brainstorm ideas for our trip to Brazil. Three hours later, we never even talked about our ideas. Six weeks later, he asked me out on our first date.. and the rest is history...

Who would've ever thought that going on a missions trip that I signed up for just because all my friends did, would've turned out this way? God is good!

Oh, and we never did get to those t-shirts!

Long Time No Blog

My friend, Christine, recently commented to me at an F-L meeting how I hadn't blogged in months. I have no real good excuse except that the perfectionist in me started getting daunted about blogging the perfect thing about Brazil.. and what if I wrote a last follow-up thank you email to my Brazil supporters.. how would that differ from a thank you card I send to them.. and how would that differ from what I write in my blog..

I ended up freezing up..I know, I know.. so silly for just a mere update in my life.

God has been doing a lot of amazing things in my life and revealing tons to me about myself and how much I need Him more. I'm just going to start blogging.. so pardon the randomness that is to come!

Top 5 Things I miss about Brazil

It's been nearly a month since I left for Brazil. I'm still getting my photos organized and thinking through everything. I still have a ton to process through..but in the meantime, I thought I would write about the top 5 things I miss from Brazil.

5. Siesta- We had one every day after lunch for at least an hour. And I always took advantage of that time. :-) There's something about being in that heat that makes you really tired and sleepy.

4. Simplicity of life - Believe me, when I got back, I was excited to take a hot shower, head out to the gym, and wear my high heels, but there was something very refreshing about just being out in the Amazon without a worry in the world and completely remote

3. The beautiful Amazon Jungle- It's hard not love God's creation when you see these things..

Along the Solimoes river

Cuinha

Cuinha at Sunset

2. My new family- When you're in the Amazon with 16 other people on a boat, you become pretty close with everyone. It's like having a new family. And they're the only other 16 people who know exactly what you've been through.

The only picture I have of everyone. Well except for me, since I took the photo

1. Total Dependence on God - There several times on the trip where I would be frustrated or I felt like things weren't going well. But God always shined through. Whether it was feeding the 5000 or me sharing my testimony and encouraging other women who were struggling. It was pretty awesome!

Me gearing up to share my testimony

Feeding the 5000

One awesome story from Brazil...

I was on the women's team and we got the opportunity to give talks to the women about hygiene and parlay that into how God created women as his most perfect creation..and encourage these women in telling them that they were beautiful.

The typical run down would be:
Hygiene
Testimony
Gospel presentation
Prayer and Gifts

Our gifts were goodie bags full of travel sized shampoos, toothbrushes, nail polish, lotion, etc..

At our 2nd to last village, we had run out of goodie bags and we still had one last session to go to. So just before we entered the last village, my leader, Holly, encouraged us to take our ministry kits (armed with a handful of items should we happen to run into someone on our own) and break them down. We made 21 additional bags. Holly said that we were feeding the 5000. We just prayed that the 21 bags would be enough.

So we had our last session in which ended with a woman weeping on the floor. After we prayed for her it was time to give away the gifts. I counted and told Holly we had 23 women, not enough.. And then she said, "No we have 23! That's a God thing!" It turns out she had found an extra 2 bags at the last minute. God had it all worked out!

It was a great reminder for me to see how God always provides!

The Trip of a Lifetime

Thanks for all your prayers. I got back a few days ago and I have to say that the Amazon might just be the most beautiful place on earth!

It was an honor and privilege to serve and minister to the "Forgotten people" on the Amazon River. It was the biggest blessing to me.

Keep checking my blog. I took about 350 photos so I need to filter through some of those before posting them. In addition, I'm still processing through a lot of what I learned.. So keep checking back.

Thanks!