Thursday, October 9, 2008

International Justice Mission

Our church--Missio Dei Church-- is joining up with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Montreat College to bring in Victor Butros of International Justice Mission to present his work.
We are also taking a look at the domestic problem of Human Slavery and Sex Trafficing by inviting Susan Hinz of the Hope House Project to present ways that we can get involved in assisting those who have been devastated by this horror.

Come out to learn more and find out how you can help!!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Lily Elizabeth Matthews!!!


Look at this cutie!! Lily was born last Wednesday, and Reece and I are so excited to finally meet her this weekend! Getting 2 new nieces in a month is an exciting thing! Please pray for Lily and her family as they adjust to her arrival.

Here is Lily with her mom Kelly, and siblings Lindsey and Luke!

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Fall Getaway 2008!!!

Fall Getaway is our first conference of the year, and is an exciting time of spending a weekend with our students from different colleges. After a super busy first 6 weeks, both we and the students couldn't wait to get away to learn about the Lord, and spend time growing! An exciting part of the conference this year was being on the team that put the conference on this year. For the past 2 years, Reece and I were learning and just lending help in random places, but this year we were able to help plan and lead the conference...it was lots of fun!


God is so good to use our efforts in this conference each year. This morning when we met with the students to debrief what they learned this weekend, it was awesome to hear students experiencing the Lord and considering how to bring the Gospel to their campuses. Above is me with Heather, a senior at Western Carolina University at Fall Getaway. She has been so faithful, and is excited about growing in her faith. She's been especially teachable, which has been so encouraging!! It's so special to see God at work in our students.


Above are almost all of our students who came with us to Fall Getaway. We had students from Western Carolina, UNC-Asheville and Montreat! Thanks for praying for us as we do ministry. It's been such a blessing!!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Gas Shortage in Asheville

This past weekend, Reece and I came down the mountain for a fun weekend...One thing we took for granted somewhat was having gas to drive around on our merry little way. Gas in Asheville has been expensive...a few gas stations raking in $4.75 per gallon...but we had gas nonetheless.

Fast forward to this Monday. We were on the way home from Western Carolina in Cullowhee. We were running a little low on gas, but we had enough to make it home. Reece was on the phone with a friend from church back in Asheville who had gotten off work early and was driving to get gas before heading home. He went to 11 gas stations and still couldn't find a station that had ANY gas....that's right friends, 11. So, on the way home we looked at each station we passed to try to get gas, and none had any either.


So, Wednesday morning when the gas stations up the street from us...one in the morning, one in the evening...had a shipment of gas come in, it was a madhouse. We took pictures at the massive lines in front of the stations....we couldn't capture how crazy it was, but people were literally lined up for about 1/4 mile on the main road just to get gas. Here's what we saw:




So, hopefully that made you thankful for having a full tank back home!

Friday, September 12, 2008

The whole earth is full of His glory

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3)

Recently I was thinking about this passage and how when the seraphim see the earth, they see that it reflects both God's presence but also His glory. Just seeing what God has created is a testimony that He lives and is good. It was awesome to think about how much more I would be able to see God in the world if only I wasn't sinful. It makes me really excited to meet God face to face...what we're experiencing here is only a shadow of His goodness and greatness.



I was on campus a few days later, and was meeting up with a freshman at UNC-A. She was interested in talking through a few of her questions about Jesus and Christianity. Growing up in Raleigh, she wasn't used to seeing the beautiful mountains every day (we really do live in an awesome part of the state) and since moving to Asheville has really been moved my how awesome creation is here. Because she had never sought out God and connected with Him personally, proof of His existence in creation really began to open her desire to check out who He is when she came to college. What I had been reading about and thinking about was taking place in her life!! She saw that the whole earth is full of God's glory! In fact she said that she desired to know God in a personal way more than she ever had. When I talked to her about the Gospel--that Jesus is God in the flesh who came to live on earth to die the death we deserve so we can know God for all eternity, it totally made sense to her. She saw that God's love led Him to make that type of sacrifice for her...that He cared for her intimately and personally. I walked away from that awesome conversation so amazed at the Lord. He allowed me to step into her experience for the privilege of seeing what He had done in her life. It was so humbling to remember that although I am trusting God to use me to bring people into relationship with Him. He really doesn't need me at all. Thank God that He is all powerful and able to do exceedingly more than we could ask or imagine. Amen!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Our beautiful niece Ava Kathryn!!!

This past weekend, we celebrated our little niece being born...her name is Ava Kathryn Johnson, and she is a heart-breaker already. She is so beautiful!

Reece with sweet Ava.

this is me realizing how hot babies are....I was burning up while holding her!


Look at that face....seriously, she's the cutest ever!

Another highlight to our weekend was spending time with our other niece Elizabeth. One of the things we hate about living in Asheville is being so far away from Reece's family...his mom, dad, brother and sister (along with their spouses and kids) all live at least 4 hours from us. So, having a whole weekend to play with our little niece was such a sweet surprise! Here are some pictures of her:Yep, that's right...she's a cutie too! Jeremy will have his hands full with these two beauties!


We're so thankful for a special weekend with family. Thanks for letting us dote on our nieces as well :)



Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Olympics....aka Shawn and Nastia's show

Reece and I are in love with the Olympics! In fact, we decided to get basic cable for the purpose of having NBC for this momentous occasion, and it's been well worth it! Our highlight has been watching Nastia and Shawn rack up the medal count every night. We've been on the edge of our seat as we await the scores for our two favorite gymnasts...it's been a blast.

In the midst of all the Olympic hype, I've enjoyed hearing athletes giving glory to God in their post-gold interviews. It's incredible to see God using this occasion to make himself known. If you're interested in hearing stories of Olympic athletes whose lives have been touched by Christ check out:



Happy Olympics!

Ready...Set...Campus!

It's campus time-- summer is over. The first day of classes for colleges in western North Carolina has come and gone, and now begins the rush of the first few weeks on campus! Today, Reece and I spent our whole day at club fairs-- 4 hours at UNC-Asheville this morning, then 3 hours at Western Carolina this afternoon. At one point, I was at Western Carolina talking about going to work out at UNC-A...this being on 2 campuses in one day was a little confusing for me. We definitely had a great time hanging out with out student leaders, and working together to welcome the freshmen and new students checking out what to invest their time it. Please pray that students would prioritize Jesus as a worthy investment. Here we are with our student leaders at Western Carolina:


Pray for us that we would have energy while being on campus, and that God would allow us to connect students to Jesus through the new relationships we form this semester!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Redeeming Love


Here are the pictures from our hike to Big Bradley Falls....


JP, Mallory, Me and Reece in front of Big Bradley



Reece and JP playing

Isn't summer the best? I've really enjoyed getting to spend time with friends, and take time for things I don't normally do during the semester...like reading! I just finished Redeeming Love last night, and it was so awesome. I had heard about this book for a long time, and Katie let me borrow her copy because she said I had to read it. Lately I've needed something to refresh me in my relationship with the Lord, and reading this book has grown my understanding of what God's love looks like. If you've never heard about this book, its about a Christian man who feels God tell him to marry a prostitute. He goes to the brothel (a place where you'd never expect this man to be) and tries to convince her to let him buy her freedom so he can marry her. I won't spoil the rest of the story, but it was so touching. It really made me think about God's love and how we as people are so like the stubborn prostitute. She didn't want to leave the brothel...she thought there was no way she could change or trust this man who wanted to give her a better life. Aren't we all that same way with God? Jesus died to pay for all our indifference and rebellion towards Him, but then we doubt his goodness and don't trust Him with our lives. This story was so great, and I recommend it to everyone!

Monday, August 4, 2008

My arms are Jello

Have you ever started working out hardcore after being lazy for a few weeks?

Well that's what Reece and I have been doing lately. Although we walked about 6 mile per day in New York City, our arms have been lazy for a long time now. Thanks to Ben, we're now doing the Hundred Push-Up challenge which has been so fun ( http://www.hundredpushups.com/). Check it out.

In addition to our new arm work-out, we went to Big Bradley Waterfall with JP and Mallory a few days ago, which further added to our fitness. I had no clue what we were getting into when we arrived to the trailhead that day, but about 20 minutes into our hike to see Big Bradley, the trail ended and there was a rope that led down about 15-20 feet of rock. JP told us that we had to rapel down using the rope. Thankfully, he made a harness for us to put on, because Mallory and I were pretty concerned about this adventure. But I'm glad to say that we were brave and went down, and back up on the way home! I'll post some pictures of the beautiful falls soon. It was definitely worth all the work!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Looking back on NYC

The Tribeca summer project ended 2 weeks ago. In some ways it seems like it was another lifetime ago. Since then, we’ve gotten re-acclimated to life in the South, visited family and friends, spent a week at the beach and gotten back to Asheville to unpack and get ready for the semester. Through all of this I’ve been trying to wrap my head around our NYC experience this summer.

Stephanie and I both feel like the Lord used us in spite of us this summer. We had a great team of staff and students to lead. I feel like God pushed us to the limits this summer and taught us so much (a lot of which I’m still figuring out).

He taught me a lot about leading others, about speaking truth and sharing my faith. Our team was able to share the Gospel with over 100 people and saw 2 people make the decision to begin following Jesus!

God taught me a lot about relying on Him and not on myself and about finding significance in Him and not in the job I’m doing or in what others think about me. It was such a temptation to base my self worth on the popularity of my decisions and not on the fact that I’ve been adopted in to the family of God.

We learned a lot about seeking the shalom of the city (Jeremiah 29) this summer and what it should look like for a Christian to be a part of a community. In Jeremiah 29 God calls the Israelites to not set up a camp outside the city of Babylon and to separate themselves, but to move in to the city, to marry, have children, plant gardens and become a part of the city, not use it only for what they could get out of it, but to seek the prosperity of it and add to it. This is how God’s people were to be a blessing to the city of Babylon. I learned a lot about how God calls us as Christians today to do the same thing, not to separate ourselves from the culture of our communities and set up our own separate communities, but to cause change within the culture of the communities we live in and to be a blessing to them as we seek to show them Jesus.

These are some of the things that have been on my mind since NYC. Please pray for us and our students as we all continue to process through what God taught us this summer and how to bring it back with us. Here are a couple more pictures from NYC.





Yeah we ate at the original Nathan's on Coney Island. I'd still rather have a Bright Leaf hotdog with mustard, chili and slaw any day!





This is in front of the Queensboro Bridge on a double date with the Woods.
This is the view we had from the roof of our apartment building (Carl's), not bad at all. Thanks for the memories Carl!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

July 4th--a rainy day of waiting around on a pier

The 4th of July in the city is strange day. In order for us to get seats for the Macy's Fireworks show, we arrived at the pier on the East River at 2pm that afternoon! We all reserved our spots, and around 5pm the pier was blocked off so no one else could get on. It's pretty serious business! Here is our group hanging out at the end of the pier:



Around an hour before the fireworks, it started to pour down raining...thankfully Reece and some of the other guys had purchased HUGE tarps that were 30 ft X 10 ft. We had a few extra that we were even able to share with our fellow firework watchers. We created a big tent above our heads using the tarps and successfully kept ourselves dry...and had LOTS of fun in the process. Here are some shots of us enjoying it:
Reece holding the tarp up with an umbrella balanced on his head...
I married a pretty talented guy.



The rain can't get Eden and Heyward down!!


It was pretty stuffy in there, so we stuck our heads out. We realized that we looked pretty funny in the process.

Hope you all had a very happy 4th!!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Hello World, Welcome to New York City

First I want to apologize for the large gap since the last post. Life has been particularly busy this past 2 weeks. Ministry has been great, and strangely enough we'll only be here for a little over a week more. Each week in New York City, we've focused on a different area of ministry. This past week our focus was international ministry. You may have heard us talk about the Queens borough of New York City being the most diverse place on the planet according to a recent census poll--well we've certainly experience the great diversity in our backyard here.

...on the campus of Columbia University

This week we went through training on how to do ministry with international students who are studying in the US. One thing that really excited me is the idea of the world literally coming here. Jesus desires for every tribe, tongue and nation to know Him, which is a high calling for us. We have many friends who are overseas helping to fulfill that calling even this summer. But reaching the international students who have come to our country makes so much sense when we actually live here! They have provided the money for the flight here, they are the ones who desire to learn our beliefs and culture, and many times they are never befriended by a Christian American during their time in the US. All of these reasons made our week of learning how to do international ministry very necessary and exciting.

On Monday of this week, I met a girl named Celia (that was her American name...I can't pronounce her Chinese name) who is an international student who came to study 1 1/2 ago from China. Celia was so sweet, and was so open to talking about her home country and the values and beliefs she was brought up with. She told be that in her country she had never learned that their was a spiritual part of life, and had no idea who God is or how to know Him. In fact, she has only one Christian friend in China, but Celia was confused by her beliefs because she didn't know who God was. It was amazing to see her openness to talking about Jesus and our belief that He is the only way to know God personally because of His sacrifice for us on the cross. Celia walked away saying that I had given her a lot to think about. Would you please pray that our conversation would be used in her life to bring her to know Jesus?

It's been awesome seeing our students stepping out to love people in the city. They've amazed us with how they're committed to meeting people where they're at and trusting God to make Himself known. Would you also pray for these 9 students to have endurance to finish well in this last week on campus before heading home? Here is a picture of these awesome students:

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Brooklyn College and WICKED

1 1/2 hours and 27 subway stops was the time it took us to get to our campus today. We traveled from the student housing in Queens to Brooklyn College. I never imagined that it would take that long to get around this city! Although it was a long commute, the rewards of being on campus were great. Like yesterday, I experienced so much diversity. When we arrived on campus, we paired up to do different surveys to help us learn about the campus...what things students care about, what people enjoy being involved in, and why they chose to come to Brooklyn College. Although the surveys are structured to provide practical information to help us do what we call "decoding a campus," almost always the conversation turns to spiritual things. It's so interesting how that happens, and the conversations we've had with people the last two days has been eye-opening.

The first guy we talked to on campus today was named Admar. He is an international student from Croatia, in his last classes before graduating this summer. As a philosophy major, he's a deep thinker and it was awesome to walk with him as he pondered God's love in the midst of an imperfect world. He is agnostic, acknowledging that a "higher being" must exist, but not really desiring to worship or know him. Our hour long conversation didn't bring Admar to faith in Christ, but we walked away encouraged that God had moved in his heart...perhaps bringing him one step closer to trust Christ with his life.

Thank you so much for praying for us, and for our students as we minister on these campuses...please keep praying that God will bring us into divine appointments with people who are searching for spiritual truth about God.

On a much lighter note, I was able to go to the Broadway Musical WICKED on Sunday!! We entered a lottery at Gershwin Theatre and 2 of our students won the right to buy 2 FRONT ROW tickets for only $26.50 each! Each of the students could take a friend, and Sarah asked me to come with her. It was such a great show...if you're ever in the city you should totally see it! Here is a picture of the whole group (minus me) waiting for the lucky winners to be announced:



Here are the 4 girls that went to WICKED:

Monday, June 16, 2008

NYC is fun...and very tiring!


Our New York Experience has been so fun. We've already seen more things, and been more places than I thought we would all summer. Life in the city is fast-paced, and is pretty tiring. We leave in the morning...around 9 and don't get home until 10 most nights! It's hard to get used to. Here are some pictures of the fun we've had:


Here we are eating Gimaldi's pizza in Brooklyn after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Here is us at the Top of the Rockafeller Center...the view of Central Park was my favorite!

You might be wondering what else we've been doing in addition to all the sight-seeing...well today was the first day of ministry on the college campuses here. Up until this point there has been lots of preparation, and getting students adjusted to life in the city (navigating the subways, building relationships within their team, learning about their campuses, etc) Today my ministry team spent most of our time at Hunter College, where my friend Jon and I were able to talk to 4 students who were soooo different than us. Out of the 4 students we just happened to strike up conversations with, 3 were Jewish. It was awesome...I love the diversity here, and it's awesome to see how the Gospel transcends all those unique differences. It was a great day, and we were able to talk about Jesus alot! I'm excited to tell you more as we're on campus much more frequently for the next 4 straight weeks.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Team Bonding

These past few days have been great. Our staff team arrived on Wednesday, so since then we've spent lots of time getting to know each other in hopes that we'll lead well together this summer. I'm so excited about the fun group of people God has brought together. On Friday evening and all day Saturday, we spent time sight-seeing and also learning about the campuses we'll be ministering on this summer. We also spent 5 hours telling each other about our stories in an exercise we call "Soul to Soul". It was so fun hearing how different we each are, but how we are all here for the same purpose. Here are the FUN staff we'll be spending the summer with--these pictures are from the BBQ festival in Madison Square Park!: From left to right: Eden-- on staff at University of Tennessee, Erik--on staff at Syracuse University and Jonathan--on staff in Albany, NY

Above are Hobie and Hannah Wood, who are on staff at Appalachian State University. We also spent last summer with this WONDERFUL couple, and are sharing our apartment in Queens this summer with them.

The students arrive this Tuesday! I'm so thankful for this past week--I've been able to get used to the fast-paced city life, and get to know our staff team before welcoming our students. Please pray that the students would have a safe, relatively easy transition here to NYC and getting used to the culture shock that can happen. Thanks for praying!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

We finally have a place to live!


As of yesterday, we finally moved into our home for the summer...a cozy little apartment in Queens. We're sharing the 2 bedroom apt with our friends Hobie and Hannah Wood, who are also doing ministry with us this summer. The housing we found for students this summer doesn't have accommodation for couples or families, so each had to sublease various different apartments in the city. Our apartment was particularly hard to find for some reason, and we actually took the train up to NYC not knowing where we would spend the next night...it's been quite the faith stretching experience! Here are some pictures of our apartment--that kitchen picture was after extensive cleaning by Hannah and myself...It's a bachelor pad, so as you could imagine, it wasn't as clean as we would have hoped (no offense guys). Along those lines, the guy we're subleasing from was in a hurry leaving for Chicago that day, so he left lots of random things out that we had to clean up--dirty dishes in the sink (with no dishwasher other than us), dirty towels hanging in the bathroom, and--as shown in the picture-- shoes on the floor! After getting our apartment ready for someone to live in it while we were gone, this was definitely a surprise...but, needless to say cleaning up a little bit didn't kill us, so we'll be ok.

One thing that's been pretty fun lately is getting used to the subway system. I imagined that it would be tough to learn, but I had no idea there were so many routes and lines to navigate. It's like a big puzzle for me. Well one really fun subway memory was made tonight. Reece and I were coming home from the Campus Crusade office, and were bringing a rolling shelf with us back to our apartment (because we have basically no drawers or closet space in our room). We walked from the office to Grand Central Station and had to roll the shelves to take the train. Well it was late, and we were tired so we started doing acrobatics in the middle of Grand Central Station using our shelves...here are some pictures:

Monday, June 2, 2008

Our first day in the city!


We were so glad to finally be in New York City today. After 13 hours sitting on a train yesterday, we both were happy to be out walking around....and boy did we walk A LOT today! Reece had a pedometer in his pocket throughout the day, and it reads that we walked 15991 steps (6.7 miles) today. Whew! It makes me thankful to be sitting down again :)

Our apartment is not available until Wednesday so we've been staying in a hotel in Queens. We had meetings this morning in Manhattan, so we had our first subway ride of the summer this morning. We waited for 20 minutes for it to arrive which we didn't expect...thank goodness we learned yesterday to be early!!

After our meeting, all of the directors went up to the Bronx to the Bronx Zoo! It was really fun, and amazing to see all the animals. We saw some pretty strange things as well. A gorilla threw up in his hands twice and proceeded to eat his own throw up both times. I know I'm probably weird, but that was my favorite part.

After the zoo, Reece and I went to Bryant Park in Manhattan to have a little date for our 1 1/2 year anniversary! We got sandwiches and brought them to a little table in the park....so cute. From the park you can see the Empire State Building on one side, the Chrysler Building to another side, and lots of pretty grass which is an endangered species here. It was very nice...oh, and we were able to sit again. I liked that.


Here is Reece with the sandwich shop in the background...it was named 'Wich Craft. I definitely recommend it. We're excited for another day tomorrow!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Planes, Trains and Automobiles…


“Love, we’re gonna be late, its quarter till 3!” Yeah, that would be am. I never thought that getting up at 2:45AM would make me late for anything.

So yeah we woke up late to catch our train to New York City for summer project. We hurried up and to leave by a little after 3 or so. As we walked in to the Amtrak station in Greensboro, the ultra-calm ticket agent said to us that we should have been there long ago if we were going to check our bags…thanks a lot. Stephanie and I ran to get our luggage, not fully aware of how close we were to scheduled departure, causing a commotion that we wish was captured on film. Seriously, it probably looked like something from a movie.

As we started running from our car I was dragging 2 large rolling suitcases, a backpack, a duffle bag, 2 squishy pillows, a back roll, and a bottle of aloe vera (we got a little too much sun at the lake yesterday) and Love with a large rolling suitcase, backpack, 2 Nalgenes, a blanket, and food for the trip. At this moment, I thought, “I survived a much worse fiasco getting on a train in China than this, we’ll be alright and we’ll make it on the train; they won’t leave.” The next moment everything was falling; the pillows, the duffle bag that I had on top of the rolling suitcase, the aloe vera; everything. Stephanie bursts in to tears over how pathetic the situation is and over how tired she is. Seriously, at this moment I’m thinking that this is just like a TV show or a movie and then I remembered that they always make the train, plane or whatever on TV and the movies; we’ll be alright, they won’t leave us.

A few steps later and I’m on the sidewalk, I have dropped the red squishy pillow and run over it with one of the suitcases. It’s a casualty at this point, I’m not going back to get it. The ticket agent helps us to get on to an escalator to get up to the train. As soon as we get off the escalator and step on the platform, the train blows its whistle and begins rolling. The porter on the side of the train shook her head and said that it was too late.

The stages of mourning presented themselves quickly. Immediate disbelief, following quickly by rage, made me want to hurl my Nalgene bottle as hard as I could at the wall. Then followed a long period of strategy. I turned to the ticket agent to ask where the next stop was and if we could drive there and beat the train. He said we couldn’t make it and told us the next train to NYC left at 9:21. It was 4am.

Back downstairs in the ticket office, we found out that we would have to pay $180 extra to take that 9:21 train on top of the $160 that the tickets to NYC already cost us. After my awesome wife called Amtrak “customer service” (she said she would be more determined than me and not back down) without really getting much service, we decided to try to see if we could get a cheap flight. Going to the airport ticket counter was the wrong thing to do because the agent at the Greensboro airport noted that we were walking up to the ticket count to buy tickets, apparently that’s the most expensive way, and then told us tickets would be $900…per person!

Then we called Mrs. Love (sorry we kept you up!) and she looked on discount airline sites and bus sites for alternatives while we drove to Panera to use their internet connection to do the same.

After seeing nothing for less than $400, the next mourning phase set in, acceptance followed by delirium (due to the lack of sleep). We drove back toward the train station to check in wait for the 9:21 train. The same ticket agent was there, bless his heart. He checked our bags in for us, 3 hours early and then wisely asked if we were going to hang around there or if we were going to go anywhere and then told us what time we should be there to not miss the train. The following events including quite an excursion in downtown Greensboro will come in a later blog post.

We have made it to New York now though and are chillin at the La Quinta (Queens).


Friday, May 30, 2008

Max Patch

You might be wondering about the picture behind our title. One of us (can't remember) took it on a hike last fall. Max Patch is a completely clear grassy bald west of Asheville near the Tenn. border with an amazing 360 view. Its been my favorite spot that we've found so far in the Asheville area.


Besides the breathtaking views, the drive to the trailhead is a dream for someone like me. Off the interstate, you take about a 3-mile steep winding gravel road that is a blast to drive!

Last fall when we hiked it, it was around 55 degrees or so in Asheville, so we dressed for that weather. Being low-landers most of our lives, we forgot that the temperature would drop as we got to higher elevations. Add in the fact that the wind blows there like it does at the beach and you've got a recipe for a miserably
freezing hike. I thought my ears were going to fall off (no toboggan) and Love had a thin scarf around her head...it was quite a site as you can see in the picture. I'm definitely looking forward to going again without being miserably cold.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

My forgetful life in the kitchen


I'm a big fan of buying seasoning packets. Lately it seems that lots of my favorite things to make have required be buying these handy little helpers...chili, enchiladas, guacamole...you name it, they probably have a packet out there to help you make it. Well, lately I've been pretty forgetful--I get everything out to make my meal, and realize that I forgot that little packet! I've been very impressed with myself lately though, because I've decided to actually learn to figure out how to make my meals without them. I wanted to share a recipe I just tried and really liked. So save $1 and a trip to the grocery store, and try it!

TACO SEASONING
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
Enjoy!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Weddings and Babies


We are officially in the heat of the wedding and baby season of life. We've been amazed at how many weddings we've gone to in the past year, and how many of our friends who are already married are starting to have babies. Also, Reece's sister Kelly and sister-in-law Caryn are both pregnant too! I understand now why people start getting baby fever when their friends start having babies. Mom says I need to babysit to ward the fever off.

Above is a shot of Reece holding baby Ben Meredith. Reece was sure to wear his Wolfpack red to balance out all of the Carolina gear baby Ben was already wearing. I'm not too sure Jacq and Ben liked that one :) We also celebrated at two weddings this month: Laura and David Sloan as well as Nik and Lindsay Franks. Here are some fun shots from their weddings:


David and Laura driving away in their sweet ride!


Nik and Lindsay during their vows!

I love getting to celebrate at these fun occasions!