the big 3-0

Yep, he hit the mark! Andrew turns 30 tomorrow! We'll actually be heading to South Carolina to work with our ministry's summer project, so it will be harder to celebrate it then. And did I mention we're getting picked up at 4:45 am? Whew! So instead we settled for celebrating a few days early.

I couldn't wait for his birthday and I was so excited about celebrating my best friend! I made him his favorite breakfast- monkey bread! Here's the recipe from Pillsbury (the Pioneer Woman also has one but I haven't tried it yet) and I did a half recipe in a loaf pan. SO good but quite sugary even for me!

I had a few mylar balloons waiting for him and a couple of "Happy Birthday" banners hung around the house. I went to the discount bookstore and picked up a great book with tons of hiking trails all over Minnesota and a mini book with everything you'd ever want to know about hiking and camping. I picked out a couple of trails for Andrew to choose from and after reading a little more, he settled on William O'Brien State Park. It's about 45 north east of us and right near the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. Here are some pics from the day hike we took:

The birthday boy himself!
A beaver dam Andrew spotted and got a shot of:
We crossed these fun train tracks...Isn't he the cutest hiker you've ever seen?!
this awesome tunnel we walked under- so picturesque!

The prarie grasslands of the park:
One of the beautiful marshes with tons of little lily pads:After the 6 mile hike we stopped by our nearby favorite small town: Stillwater, MN. It's SO cute! We had lunch there at a place Andrew took me around 2 years ago while we were dating.

We had to get some errands done and knock out a few things on our check list and then we headed to Andrew's favorite restaurant for dinner: Buca di Beppo. We headed over to the one in St. Paul and hubs was drooling when the double chocolate cake we delivered to him!

Speaking of chocolate, last year when Andrew and I visited Charleston we stopped at a cute little bakery called Baked. Hubs was being sweet and let me fulfill my unquenchable sweet tooth. Really though, he got the reward- "the best brownie ever." So I went online and ordered a few of the "sweet and salty" brownie that he swooned over. This is what it looked like:


I loved getting to make my husband smile! I really enjoy getting to make him happy and celebrate such a sweet gift in my life!

a fresh start

I'd posted a while ago about how I wanted to reupholster a chair seat and then refinish this hideous little child's desk turned accent table and I've finally gotten around to putting up the pictures!

Here's the chair before and after:

Here's the table from start to finish:

1. The original: What you can't see here is the peaking through of pink paint and grime on it and the sticky something all over the bottom of the legs. Eww! Note the smiley faces, stars and old hardware.
2. Getting all the supplies meant thick gloves, chemical stripper, a stipper wash to neutralize afterward, putty knives, natural bristle brushes, thick tarps, and buckets. Here's what I used:


3. Applying the stripper and letting it sit was amazing. It bubbled right up and revealed the layers of paint underneath I didn't imagine. Then you just use the putty knife to remove the now thick but malleable paint layers. Continue all the way around the table to get ever inch

The paint immediately bubbles up
After scraping off the layers of paint on the backside of the table:
Stripping the top of the table which had the most paint and lots of blue paint underneath! Thank you hubs for wanting to capture this lovely and flattering momentHere's all the stripped off paint in my handy bucket, yuck!
4. Use steel wool dipped in stripper to get remaining paint off of hard to get places. Ta-da!


5. Rinse with stipper wash, let set, sand and prep for a refinishing

6. Repaint and add new hardware! We used a warm gray, added some dark brushed knobs, and sanded a few areas down for a slightly distressed look (And in that little white frame is some scrap fabric from recovering the chair)

great faces. great places.

Since hubs and I live out in the Midwest, we thought we might as well take advantage of all the great things around here. I often compare and complain about things in my heart (and out loud) up here. I recently talked with a good friend who is overseas and she mentioned how after her and her husband's latest move she had to decide to embrace the new culture they were in. And it hit me. I sometimes embrace Minnesota, but often just make fun and complain in my heart thinking that the culture I grew up in is superior. It was one of those sharp and stinging realizations. Although we had already made plans to visit South Dakota for a quick vacation, it seemed even more appropriate after evaluating my superior-minded heart.

We chose to visit the great state of South Dakota for a few reasons:

1. It was the most interesting of states within driving distance of Minnesota. Our other choices: Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota (think "faaar-gO"), and of course, our friendly neighbor of Saskatchewan, Canada.
2. Andrew and I love doing things outdoors, hiking, etc. and SD has the badlands and gorgeous black hills area
3. Andrew is competitive and loves accomplishing goals...so when we found out that Mount Harney was the "tallest peak east of the Rockies" and it was a do-able day hike, he was sold
4. I needed to embrace my current Midwestern culture and enjoy it!
5. South Dakota's slogan is "great faces. great places" and with a motto like that who wouldn't want to visit?!
   

I am so grateful for my husband though- there he is while hiking! I love hiking, rock climbing, and picnic outside. I do not like sleeping in a tent with hard ground, feeling the rocks under me and then waking with dew on my face. And since our God is really gracious, he gave me Andrew, who feels the same way about being outside and sleeping inside. Whew! So we went and stayed in a quaint lodge-y bed and breakfast! How about that! The weather wasn't cooperating at first, but we did get to drive through Custer National Park and see stunning rock formations along with wild buffalo (or as Andrew would now correct me "bison"), burros (little Mexican donkeys, seriously), pronghorns, and deer. We saw Crazy Horse from a far, we visited Mount Rushmore, and went on a few hikes when it was nicer out.

Here are some pictures from our trip (mind you, it was a cool 50 degrees in mid-June, hence the cold weather clothing!) :

from top: Us at a look out spot- beautiful!; some of the rock formations I mentioned; Andrew being a goober at a Black Hills sign; one of the many rock tunnels we got to drive through; Buffalo; pronghorn

visitng Georgia, part 2

Here's the next part of our trip to Georgia. We got to enjoy a wedding gift certificate to Chateau Elan, hang out with the Knights, and see friends in Atlanta:


Strolling through the winery. Andrew playing Vana White with the grapes.














Below, we had a wonderful dinner at the Cafe Elan. You MUST get the peach bread pudding if you go. It doesn't sound that great, but it's to. die. for. Candied pecans, ice cream, yummy peaches...

And below is the sunset we saw after dinner.














And yet another one-armed picture we took with the iPhone :)











Then we ventured up to Snellville to stay with Andrew's awesome parents. Here's a shot of the whole Knight crew!And here are some of the great friends I miss down in the South. It was SO great to see them!!














College friends at our great friend Lauren's wedding!




And here's Andrew and I with Caitlyn and Chris- we are so grateful for their friendship!

visiting Georgia, part 1

We made it back to Minneapolis a few days ago. And its been drizzly and in the 60s since (what!?) So since I've been inside, I thought I'd post some pics from our trip. I love finding pictures I forgot we took! There are a lot of them so here's part one:

Welcome to LaGrange, GA. There's not much to do there. But they had their first annual Music Fest this summer! So naturally, we had to go! here are my fabulous parents and me and Andrew all there.

And...here's all of the 30 other people there. So though it was a nice thought, I'm not so sure this town is big enough (or cultured enough). I must say we did have fun there before the sky opened up


So the next day we had to take advantage of the lake! Mom, Dad, Andrew and I set out on the water. Here are a few from that day:

Andrew and Dad on the tube, relaxing after a bumpy ride! Mom wasn't letting them get by with an easy smooth run!


And the hubs broke out his phone while I was skiing and got these...
And he conveniently got this one too! This was right before he fell when Mom cut the engine after I fell! So really both if us went down
More pics to come from our GA visit!

knowing vs. knowledge

"...a person might memorize scripture or teach Sunday school somewhere to earn a degree in theology from the local seminary or divinity faculty, but that is not necessarily the same thing as growing in the knowledge of God and gaining insight into his ways."

Very well put. This I feel, is my life on many levels.

I am so prone to feel like if I just study the Word or pray or talk about spiritual things that I am "meeting with God". I know my relationship with the Lord can't be based on emotions and I want to have depth. Especially being in ministry, knowing that studying the Word is my job, that prayer in part of my career, that meeting with and counseling and encouraging students toward Christ is an expectation can subtly slip into a timed, quick, gain of information without truly seeking God and desiring to meet with him.

We gave our students a breakdown of the book of Philippians to study for the summer. Down at our Summer Beach Project (now called the Summer Training Project) and with the students we're taking to India with us this summer, we emphasize studying the Word. We've also given them a book called "Basics for Believers" by D.A. Carson and its his research and interpretation of the book. It's been helpful for me too as I study and go through the same verses as the students.

And I am just like many of the students who go to the Christian universities Andrew and I get to minister to. I fall into rule-keeping legalism easily. Many of these students do also. It's all they've known. But what a fine line of really knowing God vs. having knowledge of Him. I've met many students who can say the gospel, they can quote verses, they can tell you historical background and Bible stories. They've gone on mission trips, grown up in church and even shared their faith. Their families are church-going and they might have a missionary in their family or a pastor. But, they dance around what their lives look like. They avoid going deep about spiritual things and fear admitting confusion about Christianity. All they've known is rule-keeping.

Just as I need this line from Carson to remind my heart to seek Christ and not Christian things, it is the greatest need of many of these students.