It Was Only A Matter Of Time...

... before the suitcase got packed up and I boarded a plane again!

My brother Phil likes to tease me that I'm always taking a trip somewhere and I have to admit that he's pretty much right:). I do like to travel, so in the morning I'm heading out to the Lone Star State for 6 days. My sweetie flew down to Texas last Monday to spend Christmas with his family, and now I get to join him!

We decided to spend this last Christmas with our individual families, and I must say I greatly enjoyed Christmas with my parents, uncle, brothers, and their families. I definitely missed Nat, and am looking forward to seeing him again as well as getting to spend some quality time with his family:).

So with that said, if things are a little quiet from my corner of the net, just know I'm in the land of cowboy boots and armadillos.... with a "howdy ya'll" thrown in for good measure!

Joining The Crowd...

.... to say Merry Christmas!

Some More Various And Sundry...

I'm jumping on the ever popular bandwagon of delayed blogging by being fashionably late with these pictures from last weekend's snow:

My first snowfall in almost two years! After being in the tropics last winter (with my brain knowing what temperature it was supposed to be outside), my joy was endless as I saw the white stuff fall from the sky:).

My mom's rose bushes... um, minus the roses:).

Snow and my little car ~ two things I greatly missed in Thailand!

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In other unrelated and thereby probably only interesting news to me, Nat is gone for the weekend to Iowa. Usually he is gone for part or most of the weekend to New Jersey, but in this instance I think he is a little bit farther away than normal:). He did mention to me last night that he has finished part two of his side of The Cliff-Hanger Series and is working on part three, so that should be posted soon!

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As I sat in my church's service this morning, I was reminded again of how good God is to me. The pastor was preaching from John 6 about the disciples in a storm on the Sea of Galilee and it just struck me that God is there in every single storm. There's never a time when He is overtaken with the fear of "what to do." It sure was a good morning spent in the Lord's house, wouldn't you agree?

A Beautiful Day For A Picture.

Well we've done a fall engagement picture, so we thought it was fitting to do a winter one:). I say one loosely - there were actually 40 pictures taken by a sweet lady in my church.

Look who slipped into our little photo shoot! My nephew Ethan wanted to see "Mr. Nat" so I brought him with me to church. He was excited to see Mr. Nat inside the church, but after a few minutes outside, he wasn't enjoying being on his own off to the side. Just look at the face he is making!

Various And Sundry News.

As one commenter pointed out in the last post, my time has been taken up with a certain charming young man, in addition to all the other family members that came streaming through our house over the Thanksgiving holiday.

And you know what? That's ok:).

I really did enjoy having all my brothers, sisters and their families in for Thanksgiving though. It's very rare to get all of us together at once - hence the two group shots in the post below. We know to snag the shots when we can! Plus the rest of the family got to meet and interact with Nat... which they did very well:).

In the midst of family visiting, I started a new job ~ which has been an incredible blessing. God completely provided for me and I was -- once again -- overwhelmed at the way He orchestrated it all out. I am working at a bakery and catering place doing all sorts of things. My favorite part is interacting with customers. It's fun to get to see the "regulars" and to help out wherever I'm needed. The days are long, but are definitely worth it:).

The Christmas program at my church has also been snatching my time away, but it has been a great blessing getting involved with it. We took a break for several years of doing this particular program, so it's exciting to be actively involved with it again and to expect God to bring a couple of thousand people across our way!

There, I think I covered most of what I've been up to ~ family, finance, new job, and Christmas program:).

Well, I'm off to the races again! Enjoy your day:).

A (Pitiful) Excuse.

The lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks have been brought to you by:

My siblings:)

And also by:

My nephews and nieces:)