Home again, home again, jiggity, jig
This is a saying my mom used to say a lot when I was younger, and still uses on random occasions. I always think of it when I return to my parents house. It's funny that it is my parents house, the house they live in now is not the house i grew up in, nor even inthe same town I grew up going to school in.....so it is literally their house, and not mine anymore. But, nevertheless they always do a great job of making me feel at home, and there is somthing very appealing about this house on a hill in the country.....although I am by no means a country girl, everything smells so fresh out here, the Stars are HUGE, the animals and people are sweet and genuine, and I think my most favorite thing is sitting out on the rocking chair on the porch and watching the sunset (or sunrise on special occasions, haha) over the rolling acres of land behind our house. I dont know that I could live in the country on a regular basis, but there is something very comforting and familiar about it that I think I have only come to appreciate over the last few years. Thanksgiving day was full of great food, but a bit stressful....as the holidays always are when you have a big family, spread out all over the place, and you have to give everyone some time with you.....I am thankful for family and lots of it, but part of me just sees how amazing and simple holidays could be...and perhaps will be someday. Tomorrow I get to see my girls, Abby, Kim, and Katie! I forget that the holidays are not so easy for a lot of us, and this is Kim's first Thanksgiving and Christmas without her dad who passed away last March....I'm excited to just go spend some time with her, to laugh and tell stories and let her cry with us if she needs to...after all thats what good friendships are made of! Full of Joy, A
Best Birthday yet, hands down! :-)
Who would've thought that turning 22 could be so fun, but with friends like mine, its inevitable! :-) Monday afternoon sweet Derek treated me to see Harry Potter, since all of our friends had seen it the week before without us, hahaha...and it was SOOO good. Then my roomates preceed to tell me that we are having roomate time when I returned from the movie and that this would include us going to Devils Backbone to do a little stargazing, which of course I was down for always! So we pull up and I see a lot of familiar cars....and out pops all of Cru, hhahaha well not all, but a large amount of guys and girls who had all come to help surprise me! I was shocked and so surprised! We do a lot of surprises here with our Crusade friends, but never have I had one for me, it was fun! Grace brought a fire pit, and there were smores, and the most stars I've seen here in San Marcos in , maybe ever, filled the sky that night! It was simply wonderful! Last night, 10 of us girls got all dressed up and headed to Austin to eat at my most favorite, PF Changs for dinner! It was SOOO good! We came back to my place and opened a few presents.....of which I just have to say that I am the most predictable, easy person to buy gifts for aparently, b/c my array of brithday gifts included, ALOT of Coffee, Hot Chocolate sets, Flowers, Chocolate, and candles......and all of it, esspecially the Coffee, which I have enought to last me till summer now, made me so happy!!!! Today Bri and I are seeing the much anticipated Pride and Prejudice, and I am just going to relax and enjoy the day before heading home tomm to join my fam for Thanksgiving and hopefully see my rockwall girls this weekend!!! I'm so thankful for all of my friends for helping to make my 22nd birthday so special and fun!!! All my Love, A :-)
LOVE OF MY LIFE
Mathew Stuart Wertz....aka my future husband, put on quite a show for us last night!
This is a new love of mine, and should be of yours, Andy Davis, has his own cd and plays guitar with Matty Wertz, and.....plays the piano ;-) i was in heaven.
Here we are, me and Matt...arent we just Super cute!
Nikki, me, Bri, Jason, and Matt.....we are such groupies....every single one of us took individual pics with Matt Wertz and got so giddy. And we of course jammed to his cd's on the way up to Austin and on the way back. I had been so looking forward to this concert for months now and it blew away all my expectations! It was my first time to meet him and He was SO nice and genuine! Fun Night, Goodtimes! ;-)
Stars, Cold Weather, and Coffee
These three things have something in common...they are all things that I Love! Wednesday night I got a little bit of each and was SO loving it. We took a spontaneous group trip to Devils backbone and grabbed a little coffee beforehand and we girls had a giant Spooning session whilest freezing and stargazing....while the boys all separated and climbed trees and explored and whatnot.....so typical in our "purple" interactions, hahahaha. I think a lot of us are feeling way more vulnerable with the cold weather blowing in....People always recognize spring as the season for "fever", but I'm going to have to disagree and say that for me, winter/christmas time is what does it. Speaking of christmas, we decided here at the Jackson house, that my putting up our Christmas lights and Decorating the tree early is what has brought the plethora of visitors over this week! I knew it was an ingenius idea to put them all up early.....everyone loves christmas decor, there is something very comforting and homey about them to me. For Corrie's sake, so she doesnt move out on me, i've been holding back on the Christmas tunes, but they are about to be played in full force and nonstop here fo rthe next month or so. Now there is something to get excited about, " All I want for Christmas is You!" ;-)
Girls just Gotta have Fun!!
Our Cru girls retreat this past friday was a HUGE success! We had about 50 girls attend, both old and some very new and our goal in planning it was very authentic girl fellowship and fun, and a time a refreshing and rest, and I think all of that was accomplished and more! All my best girls were in attendance, minus the lovely Grace Wray who was certainly missed and was off fullfilling her duties as maid of honor to her sister Ruth. It's so funny to observe girls just being girls, in the raw, no boys around to impress, although I feel like sometimes we girl try harder to impress other girls than we do to impress boys, but I didnt see much of that happening this weekend. There were a couple of girls that attended who have never even been to a Cru meeting!! I was so impressed by their bravery in just taking a risk and coming to the retreat knowing no one, but leaving knowing many! I led a good old fashion game of Speed Dating to get everyone aquainted quickly, we at cru are advocates of Forced Intimacy, and this was a fun way to do it! hahaha We had some interesting Skits, where we portrayed boys, and exemplified some funny senarios about us as girls in certain situations, i think my favorite was watching corrie lead a group of girls in a girlsnight/boybashing session in one of the skits and then jump around dancing and singing to girls just wanna have fun, something she would never do in real life, hahahaha. Of course there was lots of Food, and Kimberly Bozeman led a sweet time of worship for us.....Kimberly gave me chills with her beautiful, Jenniferknapp-like set of pipes! Needless to say, I love girls times and I love girls and times like that just encourage me so much and get me very motivated and excited for things to come!
Remember when Life was Simple....
When things in life get heavy, full of drama ( mostly self inflicted), and confusing...i like to remember when life was simple. When my biggest decision of the day was which Babysitter's Club Book to read, which barbie was was going to be, uh play with that day hahaah, which disney movie I would watch and which princess I was going to be that day. My mommy made all the big decisons, like what I would wear and what I would eat........but the rest of the day was left to coloring, playing dress up, playing school where I of course was the teacher and my little brother was the student who I loved to boss around because he would do anything I said. Oh those were some good times. But unfortunately, and fortunately we have to grow up....bigger decisions have to be made and mommy isn't always there holding my hand through all of it, although I tend to call her about 20 times a day when life gets crazy, still feeling like she will give me her caring encouraging words and take care of everything and make it all better as she always has. My mom really is amazing, as I called her in the middle of the day yesterday crying during a crisis that is really out of my hands and out of my control.....she knew exactly what to say to make me feel better for the moment anyways. While getting older has its perks, there are still somedays where I would give anything to just wake up, watch a little sesame street, play with my cabage patch dolls, go outside play in the sand box making mud-pies, have naptime where my mom would read to me Charlottes web, and wake up only to let the playing begin again....
a little R&R..
This weekend I went to Pine Cove Christian Camp for a Cru Retreat called Real Life. It was relaxing and absolutely Beautiful there. There is just something to be said for getting away from everything for a few days and just reconnecting with the Lord in a fresh way. I could hear Him so clearly there...I didnt get any kind of revelation about my future or God's will for my life....but it was awesome just to think about how the options are endless and that He is taking us on this amazing adventure in life and how exciting that we dont know exactly what the next step will be. I'm learning to trust Him more with the big and the small things. We recieved a copy of John Piper's book
Don't Waste Your Life, I'm really excited to read it, maybe over thanksgiving break. The Stars out at the camp we were staying at this weekend were breath-taking. I'm always reminded of how Big our God is and how small I am but how in spite of that He cares for me, The same God who individually placed each one of those bright stars against that black sky, knows the number of hairs on my hair. Pretty amazing. My heart is heavy with some things in this upcoming week.....but I am confident that He will provide peace in His time.
I'm getting excited about Christmas...I think the tree and the lights are for sure going up sometime this week! I know youre supposed to wait till after Thanksgiving but I just dont think i'm going to be able to hold out that long! ;-)
My Mar-Mar; Ris, Rissa, Kissa....
So here is what Marisa thinks of me ladies and Gents ( preface:one of my bestest girls Marisa put this on here livejournal and asked that if she did it to us that we would put it on our Journals) So here it is:
1. I'll respond with something I like about you.
Oh Hotts, what I do without you. I like that you have crushes on boys and love to talk about them. I like that you have a passion for women and that you want to minister the love of God to them. I like our Laguna Mondays. I like the way you smell. I like that you are full of laughter.
2. I'll tell you what song or movie reminds me of you.Song: "I need a Soldier"
Movie: The Notebook
3. I'll ask you a question.If you could be any boy in Cru for one day who would you want to be and why? And what would you do?
4. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
It was my frist time to Cru January 2004. And I went to Taco Cabana afterwards I think with Jessica Hendrix and Jamie Ray. And I remember hearing a loud laugh (it was corrie) and saw you guys sitting together. I think I was introduced to you guys but yeah thats my first memory of you.
5. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.me fake yelling "heey amanda can you hear me! I'm outside!"
6. I'll describe our final fight to the death.We would have a dance off. End of story. :-D
Mar~ I just love you! Good question on #3 I'll ponder that one and let you know this weekend...its gotta be good so it'll take some thought! hahhaha
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