We have had some random events these past two weeks that I've taken a couple photos of and haven't posted yet. Enjoy the photos!
A couple Fridays ago Charles and I spent several hours at a local Catholic retreat center, enjoying 3 hours of complete silence. We went our separate ways, napped in the sunshine, read scripture, journaled, and enjoyed the beauty of the place. It was a fabulous experience and I hope we get many more opportunities to do this in the future!
Dessert night with some friends--we shared a delicious cheesecake! This last weekend we went out on Friday night for our eighth monthiversary, and we went to Hollywood to see A Christmas Carol at the Disney El Capitan theater, which is a theater Disney owns and does a whole production every time they show a movie. They even have a soda fountain connected to it!Across the street is the Chinese Theater with the hand prints and autographs of the famous people which I'd never seen before, it was pretty cool :)
I can't really remember if I mentioned this last year, but I'm going to again this year. Charles and I, as well as several of our friends, have become big fans of an organization (well, it's honestly more of a movement, rather than an organization) called Advent Conspiracy. Here's the intro on their website that sets up the reason for the existence of this movement:
"The story of Christ's birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love.
So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.
And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?
What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?
Welcome to Advent Conspiracy."
Here is the deal. Americans spend--get ready for this--$450 BILLION dollars every year on Christmas. On gifts that, for many, don't mean much--they are given out of obligation, not love, or they are given to "keep up with what everyone else has." Now just to put your mind at ease, this is NOT a group that is into banning Christmas gifts, not at all! To be able to express how we feel through a gift to our family and close friends is a great thing, and no one is saying give that up. What people around the country (starting with many churches) are finally saying is that the excess of Christmas is out of hand. The stress, the lines, the bills people can't really afford to pay after the holiday is not worth it. Is not at all what this season is about. We're too stressed to really worship, too busy to spend any time meditating and reflecting on the mystery of Jesus, the King, coming to live among us. And all of a sudden, Christmas is about something other than spending quality time with people we love and worshiping the newborn King fully.
Advent Conspiracy encourages people to do a couple things. 1, give one less gift this year. Just ONE. Find the one gift you feel you have to buy every year out of obligation—maybe it’s a person you haven’t seen in years, or maybe it’s someone else, but buy ONE less gift this year, and donate the money you would have spent on that to a great cause. This is one less line you have to wait in, one less store you have to fight for parking in. One less mental stressor as you have to come up with what to buy them. Write them a sweet, personal note instead, give them the gift of words of encouragement, tell them what they mean to you or how you are praying for them and their family this year. One less, that’s it. We can all do that. And secondly, Advent Conspiracy encourages relational gifts. If the spirit of the season is supposed to be about family, togetherness, love, and relationships, then why do we spend the whole season running around without our families finding them the perfect material item? Certainly, buy your kids or family members a few gifts to open, but then give them the gift of your TIME! We wanted to try this last year, so instead of buying anything for our nieces and nephew, we planned a fun outing day for them (a mystery trip) with the two of us. We had a great time, and we hope they will remember that way more than the specific book or action figure they were given. We’re doing that again this year, making plans for a fun day out with them, and our other gifts we’re giving encourage people to be relational with one another. The few friends I’m doing gifts for are getting homemade items, not extravagant or complicated, but not something that cost an arm and a leg either. And to me, mean so much more.
Consider joining us and many many Christians world wide who are starting to embrace this change. Advent Conspiracy. Worship Fully. Spend Less. Give More. Love All.
Happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone! I hope everyone had a joyous holiday yesterday, whether that was spend with family, friends, friends who are like family, watching football, or eating way more calories than we need to consume in a given week! I haven't done this in a bit, but here's the latest from the Kennedy household this past week!
**1** We spent a wonderful evening with a family from our church, the Yangs', who gracious invited us over to dinner. There were about 14 of us there, their family of 4, their grandparents, an uncle, an elderly couple from church whose own kids/grandkids were with the ohter side of the family, and three college boys who were around. We commented on how that was such a fun multi-generational celebration. We had delicious food, and then after dinner we got to take part in the Yang family tradition of the post-thanksgiving monopoly game they play every year. It's wonderful to be able to join in and be part of someone else's family when our own families are so far away. I know my parents spent the day with their good friends from church, participating in their family's holiday gathering as they have for so many holidays when Megs and I were not there. We're all thankful for friends who welcome us into their families!
**2** I am not joining the black Friday shopping crowd. I never have. In fact, except for the year I worked retail and had to work the day after Thanksgiving, I'm not sure I have ever set foot into a store on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I'm planning on keeping that trend going again :) We already know what we're getting family members for Christmas, and nothing we're planing on buying is going to be a different price today. I love coming up with gifts that don't require crammed malls, screaming children, and obnoxious customers :)
**3** Charles and I are excited to get to start one of our first family tradition this weekend! We've been talking a lot about what kinds of things are important to us as we create a family system of our own, and one thing we want to be intentional about is bringing the church year into our home in tangible ways, hoping to one day teach our kids to love and appreciate the beauty of the seasons of the church calendar, to see how we can experience God throughout the year. Tomorrow a friend and I are going to make advent wreaths, and Charles and I ordered what looks like a fabulous book called Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas which is full of a different couple-page reading each day from a famous theologian on the meaning of the Incarnation, reflections on Jesus coming to earth. We're pretty excited to get to light a candle each night and read and reflect together! Happy Advent everyone!
**4** Tonight we are headed down to Hollywood to see The Christmas Carol at Disney's El Capitan theater (a very cool theater where they try to make the movies come alive by having some type of live performance prior to the show starting). We're celebrating our 8th monthiversary together :)
**5** We are getting excited for all that is coming up over Christmas break! In just about 2 weeks! We'll be around LA for a week after finals, chaperoning a youth lock in, I'll be grading student's final projects, Chuck is going to camp/surf for at least a night (I may join him on the camping part if it isn't too cold!), and enjoying a bit of rest before all our travel begins! We decided we didn't want to do quite the whirlwind trip we did last year where we covered 4 major cities in 2.5 weeks. While it was very fun to see everyone, this led to an overnight in an airport, lost luggage, and a lot of jet lag! We are going to be with both families again this year, but we chose to spend a bit more of an extended time with each instead of doing 3-day stints in each place before popping over to somewhere else! We'll be in South Carolina from the night of the 17th to the morning of the 23rd, and we'll be in Minnesota from the afternoon of the 23rd to the morning of the 30th. We'll get to see all our family and hopefully enjoy being settled in one location for 5-6 days each! When we come back, our Christmas gift to each other is a night or two in a bed and breakfast somewhere, where we can relax, recover from our travels before school starts, and explore some new area of southern California!
**6** The cutest little turkey on the block :) We get to see her in 25 days, I am very excited to get to spend her first Christmas with her and am already started on her homemade gift :)She looks a little worried, I hope someone told her she is not the thanksgiving turkey, she's just wearing one! **7** Job hunt is going slow, but well, it's going. I'm applying for some director positions at various churches--director of youth or children's ministries mostly. I have an application in here at a church in Simi Valley, and I sent a resume to two different churches, one in Portland and one in Illinois. Honestly, at this point, we aren't even really caring where jobs are located, we're just sending out resumes and we'll sort through all the options later on, but we wanted to at least start getting our names out there a bit. We're kind of at a place where there's nothing to report, but we're okay with that.
I've had a couple people actually ask how I went about getting food organized for a month's worth of meals, and I know everyone has a different system for accomplishing this task, but I thought I'd share mine here, along with the recipes I'll be using this month for anyone who was curious :)
I started by printing off a blank calendar for the month--for us it was the middle of November until we leave to visit our families for Christmas break on Dec. 17. I filled in all the evenings I knew we already had commitments that would have us away from home during the dinner hour (knowing that this may change over the month as schedules change, but it at least gave me a place to start). I generally cook about 3 meals a week--something in the crock pot on Mondays while we are in class (leftovers will be dinner Tuesday), we always eat dinner with our youth group on Wednesdays, I cook something else on Thursday, and then depending on weekend plans I do one more over the weekend, usually on the smaller side. (I wish I had a big freezer but I don't, I have to be careful about leftover portions!). Then I start again on Mondays.
Once you have an idea of your schedule, I started going through recipes (which wasn't hard, I just scroll through my recipe blog which you can find here) and chose 4 main dishes. I decided I would make two of them one week, the other two the next week, and then week 3 go back to the first two meals and week four would be a repeat of the second two meals. This way when I had to buy groceries I just made a list for those four meals and bought two of everything (or bought a bigger package of something at Costco). We like to eat a lot of different salads, so the third night of the week I'll do a big batch of a different salad each week to vary our menu a bit.
Then I made my grocery list, and this part took a bit of time (about a 1/2 hour) but was totally worth it. I had 3 lists going (I just used a word document on my computer). One was stuff I could buy at Costco. Several recipes used chicken breasts, several used shredded cheese or frozen corn, to top things with etc. These things can be bought at Costco and kept in the freezer. My next list was the non-perishable items I could buy at a normal grocery store because I only needed 2 cans of something and not a case that would come from Costco. On my way home from Costco I ran by Albertsons and got all the rest of the non-perishables for the month, just to have on hand so I wouldn't have to go each week. So my chili recipe calls for a can of black beans, and so does my chicken azteca--since I'm making each of them twice throughout the month I bought 4 cans of black beans etc. My 3rd list was the list of produce or perishable items that each recipe calls for. I broke it up by week, so I have a short list of the produce I'll need for each week already made. On Mondays now I can just add to that short list the things like milk, bread, lunch meat etc that we're out of and do one quick grocery trip. We'll see how this continues to work in the future but so far it's been great! I love having a plan (that is totally adaptable if schedules change but which gives me a place to start!)
Here are the main meals for this month, which will be repeated once each, with salads, veggies, rice or pasta as side dishes being mixed in here and there. Feel free to try any of them :) (Click on each to get to the recipe)
It's time once again for my favorite blog-related tradition of the year! My list of things I am/have been praising God for throughout 2009. I work on this throughout most of the month of November, as it takes awhile to think through all the parts of the year, but it is so much fun for me to do! As always if you come up with your own list, let me know, I'd love to read it!
A: Apartment I love that we were able to take our apartment from this...to this...We now have a cozy little home that we love. It's tiny, and sometimes we wish there were a bit more space to spread out in, but we love that this is our first home. We adore our neighbors and feel so blessed to be here. It's not our dream home by any means, but it's clean, organized, and our little haven, which we are very thankful for!
B: Bridesmaids and Bridal Friends! What made our wedding so special for us was all the help we were given by our friends (and family too, of course!) Our bridal party worked a lot for us--running errands, making bulletins, decorating, cleaning, helping my mom cook, and keeping the week SO much fun for me! My favorite memories of that week were just hanging out with my girls, getting projects done--I am SO blessed to have these people in my life and WE were so blessed by their presence during a huge week in our lives! C: Classes, as in Dance Classes! For Christmas last year Chuck gave me several weeks of beginning ballroom dance lessons so we could be ready for our wedding. I loved getting to go to Monday night classes together and we had a great time learning a few basic ballroom steps. We weren't professional, but we didn't look half bad at our reception! D: Date Night This is our "date night jar" which we created this summer to help us decide how to spend Friday nights together. On these pieces of paper are random ideas we came up with to spend time together--some are simple and some are more elaborate, but it has been very fun drawing cards and seeing what is on them! I love the time we are able to set aside to be intentional about spending an evening together with no distractions, it is one of my favorite parts of the week!One of my favorite date nights was a romantic picnic on a bluff overlooking the ocean where we watched the sunset.And this was an in-home night, where we worked on a wedding journal my sister made us. E: Elephants! We went on several outings this fall that involved animals--the LA Zoo, the San Diego Zoo, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park, all of which were very fun. The Elephants are my favorite animals to watch and seeing so many of them was so fun! I also love the Gorillas, but I already had a "G" :)Us at the Wild Animal Park for my birthday F: Finished! That's right, I am finally DONE with my Masters of Divinity. It's been quite the 4+ years, and I have learned more than I ever imagined possible (and realized how little I know!). I'm not exactly sure yet what the future holds and how I will be using this degree but I have confidence that I will in some way! I am so thankful for my time here, for how God worked on my heart and stretched my mind in huge ways. G: Grandparents I realize that I am fairly unique among my friends, to make it to age 28 with 3 of my 4 grandparents alive and a large part of my life. I have been so blessed with grandparents who have always loved me and wanted to know who I am, and I can't begin to explain how thankful I am for the roles they have played in my life. This past June, I lost Gramma Nan, my mom's mom, and we have all felt her loss deeply. We are so thankful she is no longer suffering, but we miss her. In August the whole family gathered to scatter her ashes and have a memorial for her, and being reminded of the legacy she has left, both in our family and in her hometown, was incredibly inspirational and meaningful. My dad's parents are still doing pretty well and are in Colorado. They were able to be at our wedding in March and then we were able to see them again in June at my cousins' wedding. There's a chance we'll see them for Christmas, which would be wonderful! I am so thankful for the legacy that ALL my grandparents have given us!Gramma Nan didn't want a traditional funeral, so we gathered on her favorite beach to have a BBQ, play games, kayak, and scatter her ashes. She would have loved the day!Chuck standing with me as I said my goodbyes. We miss her, but we are also glad she is not suffering physical pain any longer. H: Honeymoon We kind of got 2 honeymoons which I loved! One was just 2 nights in a fabulous bed and breakfast about an hour outside of Minneapolis--we headed here the day after our wedding for two nights of rest and enjoying being married :) Then we got to go on our "real" honeymoon in June, 3 months after our wedding, after I had graduated and Chuck was done with his spring classes. It was a phenomenal week playing in the Central California coastal area--Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, San Francisco--it was amazing! We LOVED the days of relaxation, the beautiful scenery, hiking, reading, napping, exploring, and the INCREDIBLE food and wine we splurged on. I know it's not super traditional, but I'd advocate for going somewhere just for a couple nights after your wedding for a special getaway and then go on a real trip when you are rested enough to enjoy it! (our fabulous room at the Minnesota Bed and Breakfast)Chuck built me a fire each night which I discovered I LOVE falling asleep to!Overlooking the Pacific on our drive northSan Franciscoa great restaurant our last night in CarmelDELICIOUS food! I: Introverted Time I have learned that I am just as much of an introvert as I am an extrovert, and I have come to LOVE my days or evenings alone or only with Chuck. We love people, and spend a lot of time with people, but I love nights I can kick back in a pair of sweats, and read/write/watch The Office with my honey or bake (those are my 4 favorite ways of relaxing this year!) And I take off on the occasional day alone to the beach or to somewhere else just to get away for a bit which was been very re-energizing for me! J: Jennifer (x2) I have a lot of incredible friends in my life, and I am so thankful for all of them. I have two in particular I wanted to say a special thanks for this year, and they are Jennifer and Jennifer. (Or really, Jenn and Jenn!) Both have walked with me so incredibly faithfully for so long (Jenn Kendall since high school and Jenn Moore since we arrived at Fuller 4+ years ago). They were such a huge help at the wedding, were such an integral part of my processing as I adjusted to married life, and have loved me and celebrated with me this past year in ways I will probably never be able to repay. Both have entered into fairly serious relationships themselves this year, and to see them both SO happy in life is something I am SO thankful for because they deserve it! I love you both! K: Kitchen Time For anyone who has read my blog regularly this past year, you know I have fallen in love with cooking! I have a tiny kitchen but I am so thankful for the space and opportunity to play and experiment with recipes. I love getting to relax in the kitchen, and am so thankful I have a husband who enjoys eating most of what I put in front of him! L: Lily Abigail My precious baby niece whom you have all heard a lot about via facebook and the blog :) Meeting her last weekend was definitely one of the highlights of the year and I can't wait to see her at Christmas! M: Mom I have the world's greatest mom. Hands down. Dad got a shout out in my list two years ago, Megan was last year, and this year is definitely Mom's turn! She did SO SO SO much work for our wedding, we can never repay her for all the hours she put in! She did everything so cheerfully and graciously, and with excellence. Plus, she is on her way to winning Grandma of the year with her new role as Lily's Grandma--she just spent 3 full weeks with Megan helping out, cooking, organizing, staying up at night with Lily and going above and beyond! I know someday, she'll be just as amazing of a Grandma to our little one. I hope she knows how much we love her, not because of all she does but because of who she is, because she's our mom, and we think she's pretty much amazing. N: Nieces and Nephew With my wedding I got to inherit two amazing nieces and a pretty cool nephew! Helen, Jon and Diana are pretty fabulous and we're just bummed they live all the way in Japan right now! They were excellent wedding party members and we are looking forward to spending time with them over Christmas!Diana and I playing with her Littlest Pet Shop toys last ChristmasBefore our Walmart scavenger hunt we took them on last Christmas! O: Officiating My younger cousin Mikaela gave me an incredible opportunity back in June, for which I am very thankful. She asked me to officiate her wedding, which was my first time doing anything quite like this. I was nervous, but it was such an incredible experience, and helped me realize once again how much I love being in this kind of pastoral role with people at key moments in their life. P: Preaching Groups I think this is the only one I don't have a picture for :) I have had the opportunity this past year to serve as a Teaching Assistant for a couple different preaching professors, which means I oversee a small group of students who practice preaching for one another and then have a chance to give and receive feedback to one another. I help facilitate the groups and the conversations following the sermons, as well as providing feedback for each sermon in writing. It's a great job, I love the chance to hear so many different sermons and styles of preaching. I have to be honest, some are tougher to respond to for various reasons, but for the most part I really enjoy the chance to be working in this position.
Q: Quirky Kids I'm currently volunteering in a way I never really expected to--I am working with the high school youth, and I'm really enjoying it! Chuck and I are volunteers with the youth at our church and we've both enjoyed the chance to get to know these amazing students and share a piece of their journey with them. Plus, it's just fun to laugh, and they make us laugh a lot! Working with them gave us the chance to participate in a week long house boating trip with them in August which was very fun, a highlight for both of us this summer! R: Reunion In July I had the chance to head back to Granite Bay for the first time in almost 3 years to spend time with 3 of my good friends from high school. I wasn't able to make our 10 year high school reunion this summer, but I was able to make our own little reunion which was awesome. It was great to reconnect after so long, fun to see how we had each grown and changed and how we had stayed the same in some ways! I love these ladies, and it was a fun weekend of cooking a delicious meal, hanging out by the pool, and hiking in Tahoe one day. S: Speaking my mind I had the chance back in the spring to work as a hospital chaplain, which I'll write more about later, but one of the biggest things I learned as a chaplain was how to speak my mind, to say what I need in a situation. Being able to name my needs was such a huge transformative experience for me, and has carried over into other parts of my life as well. I'm working on breaking my tendencies to be passive aggressive, instead trying to say what I think aloud. I'm amazed at how much more effective this is! Speaking my mind and standing up for myself has been a lesson I'm learning that I am very thankful for! and when I asked my husband for a suggestion of something I'm thankful for that begins with the letter "S" he had another suggestion. I'll let you figure out what that is...I told him I'd mention it on here just for him--but yes, honey, I am thankful for your suggestion too :)
T: Traveling Companions We are now going on 2 1/2 years of meeting together as a small group and I am so thankful for these beautiful women in my life! I adore Saturday mornings, when we gather for breakfast, sharing, supporting one another, and sometimes a little bible study. These ladies have walked with me through a lot and I love them dearly! (We're missing Megan in this picture but otherwise we're all here!) U: Until Forever I have to be honest, it took me a bit to get used to being married! But I love it! I love knowing that I have someone with me in the good times and on the days when it feels like life is falling apart. I love that I have a partner in life, and that he is a pretty incredible one at that! V: Veggies! I adore my local produce store (Lake Produce) where I get a ton of veggies for us at ridiculously low prices. I've had fun playing with different recipes and coming up with creative ways to get my husband to enjoy his veggies too. I feel very blessed to be living in a place with year round produce! W: Will I? This phrase is one that has stayed with me as I reflect on what it was like to be a chaplain this year. There's a song from the musical "Rent" called "Will I?" and it's very simple, with just 4 lines. But they are 4 lines that are very poignant to me when I think about what people in hospitals wrestle with daily, and what I got to help people process through as a chaplain. I learned a ton from the patients I encountered, some who I wrote about here on the blog earlier. (or on my old blog actually). The lesbian couple who just wanted to know that as a Christian I could accept them. The nun who wished she still had the ability to walk well. The people I met changed me in many ways, and I will be forever grateful for this life changing experience.
Will I loose my dignity? Will someone care? Will I wake tomorrow, from this nightmare? X: Xaris The more years I do this the more difficult coming up with a "X" is! Xaris is a real word--it's just Greek. For grace. I am thankful for the grace my friends show me all the time, the grace my husband shares with me daily, and the grace God demonstrates to me through so many different ways!
Y: Youth Staff
Our fellow youth volunteers have become great friends of ours this year, and we are so thankful for the ways they have helped us laugh, enjoy ministry, and taught us more about working together in a team. We are part of a pretty tight-knit team, and it's been a blast!
Z: Zusak, Markus Every year I save one letter for something literature-related, and this year, my very favorite book of the year was conveniently written by a man whose last name started with "Z." Markus Zusak's novel, The Book Thief was hands down, the best book I've read in ages. Unbelievable story of a thirteen year old German girl living in Nazi Germany. It is a beautiful, haunting, tragic, and mesmerizing story told through the eyes of the character "Death" who arrives throughout the story collecting the souls of the fallen. If anyone needs a book for Christmas break, this should top your list!
Dessert night with some friends--we shared a delicious cheesecake!
They even have a soda fountain connected to it!
Across the street is the Chinese Theater with the hand prints and autographs of the famous people which I'd never seen before, it was pretty cool :)
