My set of Bronco’s hats. It’s been fun knitting these during games and I’m excited to be selling the pattern on Tangle’s website.

My new shiny pants

Getting ready to run the clinic.

I live just 10 minutes from the Colorado National Monument. It was beautiful in the rain.

Honor turned 9.

And Dexter turned 3.

And I learned how to play a G chord.

We watched the Bronco’s game in the garage.

And it was super fun.

Brian and I ran over to Denver to grab some stuff at Ikea and the Apple store for the church.

I woke up on my 31st birthday in Cimarron. What a place to wake up in on your birthday! Brian got the whole staff and the whole YWAM staff to sing to me at breakfast and after we finished our morning session, we all packed up and headed home. I hadn’t had service up in Cimarron for a couple of days, so as we came off the mountain, my phone started blowing up with voicemails and texts and Facebook messages… nothing makes me feel more loved than being remembered on my birthday. We stopped in Montrose on our way home for coffee and wandered around Main Street for a couple minutes before heading home.

As soon as I got home I started cooking. I had 4 hours to make dinner for 50 people and get the rest of my house in order. Thankfully Rickelle and Brian came over to help me pull it all together and I got three soups and a giant salad made just in time for my friends to start arriving. I put several tables end to end in my back yard with white table cloths and served the soups in the kitchen buffet style.

Soup is one of my very favorite meals so I almost always have it for my birthday. This year I made Chicken Posole, Broccoli Corn Chowder with Bacon, and Artichoke Sausage Soup. I asked everyone to either bring bread or wine and we had some delicious selections of both.

I had 28 adults and 18 kids in my backyard to celebrate my birthday that night and it was just perfect. I had so much fun catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and connecting to new friends too. Thanks to Lisa for taking all the photos!

a small selection of the kiddos that were there!

Brooke is SO beautiful.

Kev & Sarah

My Collection of Anthropologie plates

reading my cards by candlelight

packed backyard

Soup buffet

I spent last weekend with the church staff at the YWAM base in Cimarron, Colorado. We spent a couple intense days working on the vision of the church, talking about where we’re going and how to get there. I felt so honored to be there, representing my department – the Good Samaritan Clinic – with such an amazing team. The thing that I love over and over again about my church is how real it is, how each person on staff is so genuinely loving and how un-religious we are. I love that we all desire to help people with no agenda other than just helping them. I’ve longed for years and years for a place like this and I’m just so thankful to have found it and to get to be a part of it.

Ten years ago my sister did a DTS (discipleship training school) at this base before she went to Nepal & India for 3 months. Because Cimarron is only 2 hours away from home, we got to visit her a couple of times, packing 6 month old Eden into our car with every baby contraption we owned. It was such a breath of fresh air to return to this scared space on the mountain. As soon as we pulled onto the property, I could feel peace flooding in. And when the team that runs the school told us over the amazing dinner they had prepared for us that they had been praying for our time there, I could feel it. In the book Bittersweet, Shauna Niequist talks about the Irish folklore of Thin Places. Thin Places are places where the boundary between heaven and earth is just a little bit thinner, where you can feel heaven just a little bit closer. I’m not sure about Irish folklore, but if ever there was a Thin Place, the base at Cimarron is one.

My time there was not only significant for me in my role as director of the clinic but also for me personally. I forced myself out of bed early in the mornings so I could spend some time to myself on the porch journaling. I feel like God always talks to me through my journal and the prayers that I write in there end up being the most poignant. I think maybe because writing gives my ADD brain some space to focus.

That time on the porch was such a good opportunity for me to draw a few lines in the sand. Sometimes I have to make deals with God. A few years back I had to make a deal that I was going to stop questioning his existence. Last weekend I had to make a deal that I was going to stop fighting him, stop fighting what he is doing. These lessons of trust have been so constant in my life. (It might especially be that way for people who are a tad bit controlling…) All I know is that Trust has to be my way of life, that every time I’ve trusted him, it’s been so much better than I could have made it myself and it has always been good, even if the road there was marked by pain. Up there on the mountain, in that Thin Place, I made a new deal: that I was going to stop fighting what he was doing and let go of how I wanted things to be. I promised to start trusting again and stop doing things my own way. Trust can still be a little scary, but it feels so much better to know that someone so GOOD has free reign to do GOOD things in my life.

The Fab Five was together again over Labor day weekend for a final summer trip of the rafting season. We were back in Glenwood Canyon (my fav) where we rafted Shoshone and hung out in the Hippie Dips during a rain/hail storm. There’s nothing like having the five of us together… we all share so much history that when we get together, we pick up right where we left off. I love how our times together are such a silly mix of deep, heart talks and hilarious jokes. We continue to find out that we can’t keep secrets from each other and that we don’t really want to anyway. These are the kind of friendships that I know I have to treasure… people and connections like this don’t come along everyday. I love that when we’re together we get to play for keeps.

Our local fish taco restaurant moved to Main Street and I’m SO happy about it.

Mumford lyrics that I’ve clinged to over the past few years.

The backyard on a cloudy morning

We’ve started having epic night-time badminton tournaments. Whenever Carrie is in town, she whips all of us.

When we were in Wyoming visiting my Grandma, we had an huge family game of Hand and Foot.

Me and my hipster cousin

living room

The kids started school. Eden is in 5th and Honor is in 3rd. Last year of taking them both to elementary school. crazy.

naughty

The smoke from that Montana fire made for some crazy, pink sunsets.

My friend Dane bought a house. We will spend a lot of time sitting on this porch I think.

Three teeth in the last few weeks.

Workin on a set of patterns for Broncos hats.

Dexter loves Eden’s pet rat.

Coming up with some fun promo items for the clinic.

only at Walmart

Peach cobbler is one of the best things about summer

Apparently he’s growing out his hair.