Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

Well, I did it! The Avon Walk is over-and besides a few blisters and soreness I am SO glad I did this. It was a wonderful experience that I will never forget. Besides reaching my own fundraising goal-the Denver walkers raised 2.3 million dollars for breast cancer research and patient care! Here are only a few pics of the whole experience!

Summertime...and the livin's easy

I love summer. Right now I am taking classes and just messing around-giving piano and voice lessons, and hanging out with Baxter. (Right now he is snoring on the couch as I type.) It is during the summer when I realize how good his life is, and how good mine is. Its funny how things work-summertime is busier for Joe, and it is definitely slower for me-so I can help him out and we still get to hang out A LOT more. It's a wonderful time to reconnect with my husband and dog and just enjoy all that God has given us.
I have my Avon Walk on Saturday and Sunday! I'm starting to get a little nervous, but VERY excited. Pray for me! The weather forecast for this weekend is HOTTTTTTT! Mid to upper 90's! Yuck! So pray not only for me as I walk, but all the other participants. Also, you can still DONATE! (See the previous post). I will post pics from the weekend when I have recuperated!
Anyway-you probably won't hear from Joe for a little while, we have VBS next week and we are at a desperate pace to get things ready. Speaking of...I have to go to the church now to help Joe out!
I LOVE SUMMER!

It's Been an Amazing Summer Already

Alright, so I really didn't keep my promise to keep the blog updated. So, I've now promised myself to make no more promises concerning blogs. The number one reason....its a blog! And life is about WAY too many other things than to feel guilt over not updating a web page. With my shallow conscience assuaged, its been a great summer already. We spent an awesome weekend in Idaho with Clint and Tanya and Annie. Not only did we have a great time, but its just cool watching your niece grow up and develop her own individuality. Hopefully pictures will be posted soon (Clint and Tanya that's a hint to send em to us).

Sara is steadily finishing her training(she walked 18 miles last Saturday!) for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and if you haven't donated yet, then shame on you. This isn't about anything than helping to sure a disease that kills far too many women and even some men. You can remedy your own guilt at not supporting this cause by donating here: http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?px=3189513&pg=personal&fr_id=1283.

Then finally, there's always the God factor in what I do. I tend to pride myself on being very good at my job(which I am), however, I forget that I'm the business of watching GOD work, not letting God watch ME work. This past week, I got to see Him working. We did a series of carnivals at two local elementary schools for three days, and had over 300 kids come! That may not sound like much, but in a Western non-christian culture its incredible and totally rests on God. So, not to preach to much here, but I really love what I do. I know not all of you think its for real, but everyday I get to watch people's lives change and see their lives impacted by something much bigger than I am. If that doesn't make you want to get up, nothing will. We love all of you and as always, feel free to leave a comment or a sarcastic remark(just make it funny).

Life Moves Pretty Fast.....

One of my favorite quotes ever is this:

"Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop every once and a while and enjoy it, you
could miss the whole thing."

- Ferris Bueller. We haven't posted on this blog since February. Partly because we've been buying a house and going through Easter, and then partly because its easy to get busy and just stop communicating. So here's an update on what's happening in our world at the moment.

We're Homeowners!! We bought a house! in Colorado! Looking at the Mountains! Alright, there's so much major about that whole statement its crazy. We live in Denver, it is now official. We just closed and took possession this past weekend of a 1800sqft. Bi-level home. Pictures will follow. We've been cleaning like crazy and are going to paint it this weekend and move in next weekend(with a lot help from our wonderful friends here). Sara is about to finish her first year at the University of Colorado and I'm so proud of her. She's done a great job and will be halfway through by the end of the summer. The weather is as bi-polar as ever here. Our friends in the foothills just got 3 feet of snow yesterday while we were getting drenched with rain, and tomorrow its going to 70 degrees and gorgeous. That's the short picture, I'm recommitted to keep things current and am looking forward to the summertime. Hope all of you are well. We love you all.

Joe's Birthday

Joe's birthday was last week (February 1st for those who forgot-shame on you!) and for his birthday he just wanted to hang out with some of our friends, so we got some people together and went to Dave and Buster's. If you haven't been there, it is basically a Chuck-E-Cheese for adults. We had a great time! We love our friends so much, and we had a wonderful time celebrating Joe! By the way-he is 26 now, so you can pick on him about being old! Here are a few pictures from our adventure.

I Never Did Like Shopping....

The past three weeks have been filled with house hunting for Sara and I and in case noone has told you yet, houses in Colorado are EXPENSIVE! I'm a southern boy who is used to cheap land and acreage, which is not the case out West. In fact, Westerners apparently have an innate fear of living too far away from each other, because there's TONS of land around but everyone is packed in to .2 acre lots. Well, so is life, and at least the hunt is going well. Its a good time to buy a house and we've seen alot of different elevations and floor plans. We hope to have a contract in the next couple of weeks and as soon as we do, we'll post some pics of the would be Horan Manor.

Well, finally!

It has been a CRAZY few weeks! Here we are after Christmas and we have survived the storms (even though it is snowing again as I write this!) We spent about a week between parents houses at Christmas time. It was great to spend quality time with our families and be out of the snow. I have a FEW pictures but we didn't take many. The first is of me and my sisters, and obviously the second is me and Joe. (We all put on our scarves that Granny made for us)

Now we are back into the swing of things. Joe accepted the offer to take over the leadership of the children's ministry at our church. So we have been VERY busy trying to keep it going and come up with new ideas. The semester has started fully for me. I am taking 5 hours (3 classes) so we should stay really, really busy.

Also, we put in an offer on a house! Wow! We are waiting to hear back on the offer, so keep your fingers crossed, and pray that it is accepted!

Have a great day!