Happy Wine and Chocolate Night to me!

Last Saturday I got to celebrate my 28th birthday with a fabulous gathering! Becca graciously hosted my party at her place and about 25 people gathered for chocolate fondue and wine--YUM! It was a fun mix of friends from both Fuller and from the Glendale Pres youth staff, and I was so excited everyone was able to make it! Here are a few photos...And no, we did not drink all the wine in the picture to the left--but I thought it was funny that Sophie caught me standing in front of all these wine bottles! (We'd asked everyone to bring a bottle of wine to contribute to the party, and then I got to bring them all home, which was very fun, we have a lot of wine we can taste now and they were all different which is great!)

Jenn's boyfriend Josh is an incredible artist, photographer and all around amazing guy :) At an open house the previous weekend to celebrate Jenn's time at her church he snapped this shot of Becca, Jenn and I. Then he played around with the coloring on photoshop and printed one out for me as a birthday gift. I love it, excellent work Josh!

Sophie was in town from Texas with her roommate visiting for the weekend, so she was able to come! Dave and Alan look pretty excited to see her!

Tera and ChristinaMy phenomenal small group, minus Megan who was out of town.Fondue--yum!Jenn, Sophie, Becca and IBecca and JoshFirst birthday as a married woman!Sophie and I

Menu Planning Monday!

Happy first week of school for all those who go to quarter system schools like Fuller! School starts tomorrow for Chuck (and for me, I'll be a TA for a couple classes) so--happy first week of school and fall! I've been seeing some delicious fall soups cropping up on everyone's menu plans lately because apparently in other parts of the country it is cool enough to eat stews and bread for dinner, but well, not here yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for next week!

Last week's winner was definitely the Baked Chicken Teriyaki, it was delicious! I don't think I'd do the Pesto Pita Pizzas again. Charles (he's attempting to switch his name from Chuck, so I'm at least going to do my best in writing!) loved the apple salad, I don't think I did, but I am going to try a different one this week.

Here's the menu for this coming week--happy first week of school friends!

Snacks:
Pumpkin Bread (even though it isn't cold enough to be fall, I couldn't resist, this recipe is one of my very favorite fall flavors!)
Lemony Hummus--I've been playing with hummus recipes lately and this one hands down wins, it is awesome!

Monday: Loaded Tostadas

Tuesday: leftover tostadas

Wednesday: dinner out with youth group

Thursday: Apple-Feta Tossed Salad (I do love apple in salads, but I wasn't a fan of the dressing on last week's) with Turkey Pesto Panini sandwiches

Friday: Chicken Parmesan Fingers over Garlic Spaghetti with salad

Saturday: This week's Date Night! This week's date drawn out of our date night bowl was a picnic on the beach watching the sunset (hence not doing it Friday night, horrible traffic heading to beaches on Friday night!) I'm in charge this week, so we'll see what picnic food I come up with :)

Sunday: Leftovers

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for more recipes!

7 Quick Takes Friday

**1**

Well, I finally finished reading the second Twilight book, New Moon, last night, and I gotta be honest, I just don't get the hype. I did like New Moon a little better than Twilight, but really, I don't think I am a new obsessed fan. I am torn, I want to find out what happens (really, I just want to know if Bella becomes a vampire, that's pretty much all I'm caring about at this point) and the youth group girls are all obsessed with the books, so I feel like I should keep reading. But there is part of me that is thinking, "really? Another 1000 pages or so of this??" We'll see. The other two books are on my new lists of books I'm determined to read this year, so I'll make it through them eventually but I am taking a quick break to read something else in the mean time! The new book on my list this week is The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton, which is the story of 5 women who meet at a park with their kids on Wednesday mornings and begin to write, sharing their love of books, words, storytelling and life. A novel about friendship, books, and writing? Definitely looks like a Sarah-book!

**2**

The only TV show I really watch regularly is Brothers & Sisters, which premieres for it's 4th season this Sunday night--VERY excited to see what is in store for the Walker family this fall!

**3**

One of the highlights for both my husband and I this week was the chance we had to spend almost an hour with one of our favorite professors, Chap Clark. Chap's the youth ministry prof I've been working for for the last couple years and will continue working for this coming year. We picked his brain about the discernment process, marriage, serving in ministry together, and told him a little bit about the vision we have for a future job we might want to do together to see his reaction (he loved it, he just told us it won't be handed to us, we'll have to work for it). He's a busy guy, and so to get so much of his time was great, he was very encouraging and gave us a lot to think about at the same time.

**4**

I have a confession. I think I might be in love with my new day planner. Which I know to some of you sounds ridiculous, but for someone who loves books, paper, writing, space for thoughts, well, I am kind of in love with it. I stumbled across it in Starbucks of all places, it's their 2009-2010 planner and I adore it. The color, the space layout, the extra pages for lists of things to do, favorite quotes, movies to see, books to read, people to remember to thank etc--yup, it had my name written all over it!
**5**

I gotta take just a minute to brag about my dear dad. About 2 years ago, he left his 25+ year career in the corporate world and decided, at the age of 53, to renew his nursing license that he hadn't used since 1981. He loved nursing and I think had always wanted to go back to the world of medicine. After landing a job as an ER nurse a year and a few months ago, he applied to a Nurse Practitioner program in Minneapolis and was accepted. So this fall he just started a full time NP program to earn that credential while still working almost full time as an ER nurse. Dad just celebrated his 55th birthday and is starting a second career essentially. Chuck and I think that's just phenomenal and so encouraging to see someone choose to do something amazing with the second half of their life. So after YEARS of hearing him tell Megan and I that he's proud of us and the learning we're doing, it's our turn to say--way to use the brain, skills, passions, and life God has given you to the full dad, we're proud of you!

**6**

Tonight at our church we're having a coffee house and concert to kick off the 125th anniversary weekend of the church. I was trained last night in how to run the espresso machines and make mochas, lattes, and all kinds of drinks. We're pretty excited, the group did a great job decorating last night and we're expecting a good crowd to turn out tonight!

**7**

I'm working on my application to work part time at a very cool bookstore/coffee house here in Pasadena, so I'll keep you posted on that front!

28 for my 28th year

I like lists :) Chuck and I were talking with our favorite professor, Chap, and we were talking about the dangers of the internet and the possible destruction it can have on a marriage. When people get into the habit of coming in the door, jumping on line to play a game or check the news or scores before really interacting with one another over time this pattern of behavior causes problems. We were talking about other alternatives (we don't have issues with this per se, we were talking more in general, I promise!) and Chap mentioned how important continuing to read is for pastors. To stop reading, to avoid books and let our minds rot in front of screens is damaging to us as individuals and as a couple. I was then reminded of a firm belief my favorite pastor has, that to continue reading novels is one of the most important thing for pastors--the number of sermon illustrations and the depth of truths about the human condition, communities, and relationships are infinite. I'm not in school right now, and know that I need to be reading a lot more than I currently do, because I do love it and because I do believe what Chap and Pastor Dan says is true. Our generation really doesn't read as much, at least not good quality literature, and Chuck and I were saying yesterday that we want to not be statistics in that! He is reading Pillars of the Earth right now and is obsessed with it--he loves playing on line but these days I'm finding him laying on our couch with his book way more often than on the computer which has encouraged me to pick up my books again! I love the way that works, having someone there to encourage healthy habits! So for my birthday, as kind of a new year's resolution, I came up with a list of 28 books I'd like to read in my 28th year. I did the same for films, because we also believe it's important to stay caught up with at least some aspect of pop culture and film seems a bit more do-able than music or TV for us right now! I'll work my way through these, and may not finish them in a year, but wanted to have a goal, something I was aiming for. (Plus, I really like lists and like crossing things out!) You can find my book list here and my movie list here.

Happy Wild Animal Park Day!

We were so excited to get to spend the whole day in the San Diego area at the Wild Animal park, which was SO cool! We loved it! It was way hotter than would have been preferable for me, but other than that the day was fabulous. They have a ton of very cool large animal habitats that are wide open and house a bunch of different species at once. All the major predators are kept in habitats of their own, but the herbivores all live together which is very fun to see. We got some great pictures! (you can click on each to make them larger)

First stop, the petting area!Communal naptime apparentlyWow, look at all the people there with us! This is the BEST part about Fuller starting later than all the other schools is going places that are now empty!The African savannaGiraffe!Lots of giraffes! This is from our tour tram.Lion!The elephants were my favorite, so I may have taken a few photos of them...