I want to squeeze her

I want to squeeze her now.
21 days and counting!

Why we are loving this guy

Yes, he blocked a kick that could have won Tennessee the game AND he kept us in the running for the national championship. Coincidentally, that game will take place 2.2 miles from our home.
It sure would be nice to have Alabama come to us. Eight down, four to go. Then, Florida must die.

We are hopeful :)

Father God and Mother Nature

This weekend we went from here:

To here:
What a wonderful weekend of rest, fellowship and growing in the Word. Matt and I joined our church, Pacific Crossroads, for their annual fall retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains. It was gorgeous! As much as I love city life, I have decided that if I am going to be sane in LA I need to get in nature every couple of months. Fresh air and FALL leaves are just what the doctor ordered. We also got to meet so many people from the church, some who even live in Pasadena, and learned so much from the guest speaker, Harold Kim. We are so grateful the Lord has blessed us with such a wonderful church home!

A Story By Matt

The other day I was in an audition where I had to dance, which always makes me nervous. Not as nervous as the guy next to me. Right before he went in the taping room, he gathered his things and went to the monitor. He proceeded to back out of the audition in a very unique way. This is what he said:

"This is really not for me...I'm fartin', I feel like I'm gonna throw up, and I have to leave."

A Million Miles in A Thousand Years Book Tour

Last week Matt and I went to hear Don Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, speak at a church in Hollywood. His new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, is about turning his life into a movie (sound familiar anyone?) and how that affected him into making his life a better story through actions. Matt and I both loved what he had to say. His talk was convicting and reminded me of a story Joel Brooks once told when he still ran UCF. You see, Don Miller talked a lot about how our actions really tell the story of our lives not our words. In his talk, he said, "If you think you are the kind of dad that takes your kid fishing and you have never taken your kid fishing, then you are not the kind of dad who takes their kid fishing." A couple of years ago, when I was in Sunday school, Joel told this story about when he was in seminary. He said one of his professors came in to the class and told the students to raise their hands if they thought they had a heart for the poor, and being that it was a seminary class, everyone raised their hand. Then the professor said to keep your hand raised if in the last month you have done anything to help the poor. Almost all of the hands went down. This story has stuck with me through the years. It is so easy for us Christians to say we have a heart for the poor, that we should help the widow, love the orphan, spend time with the elderly. But when we don't do those things, what do we say? That we don't really believe these things at all. (***)

I really encourage you to go hear Don Miller speak. You can go here to see the tour dates. Since most of our friends are in Birmingham, know that he is coming to YOU on November 19 at Trinity United Methodist. You can get tickets by going to that same link above. It is so worth it! Well, the opening act, Susan Isaacs, is a little wacko but if you can get past her (she only talks for like 20 minutes) then you will be glad you went!

On a side note, it was really neat for Matt to meet Don Miller as he did write the screenplay for Blue Like Jazz. I swear one of these days they will start filming that thing! AND we met Tony Hale, who attends the church Don spoke at. Matt is having coffee with him next week to talk about being a Christian in a not so Christian industry. No big deal.

If we are not at home, this is where to find us

Thanks to this little baby:We have been spending a lot of time here:

One of my favorite things about living in Pasadena is that we are only 40 minutes away from Disneyland! As many of you know, I am obsessed with the Disney parks and their classic movies (I am really excited about this). Surprisingly, Matt seems to enjoy going almost as much as me; he even told me he misses the place (and we were there a mere week and a half ago)! Also, lucky for me, my friend Samantha is a fellow Disney freak and Maria, who just moved to Pasadena for seminary, got an annual pass as well.

When Matt and I made the decision to buy the passes, which aren't cheap even though we get a special discount as Southern California residents, we knew the investment would be worth it. A month in to living here we were going a little stir crazy in our apartment because of our lack of going out funds (read below post). We figured that because of our love for Disney we would want to go to the park often, but with the price of a one day park hopper ticket ($97.00!) we knew that would mostly turn in to a one time thing. After doing the math we realized that we would only need to go to the parks twice to make buying an annual pass worth it. After talking about it we thought we would try to go to the parks once a month. Well, so much for that. I have been 5 times since we bought the passes a month ago and Matt has been 3!