Vacation, all I ever wanted... don't pretend you don't know the song :)

I am taking off today at 2 so that I can take off and go to Paris... woo hoo!! I get to go see my parents and spend a week in Spain and a week in Paris. It is sooooooo hard to work right now (which explains the early morning post :)

I got to thinking though, I have been trying to downplay this for the last couple of weeks because I am so paranoid about people thinking I am rubbing it in their faces. I realized that I always do this.... I am afraid to talk about the blessings in my life because I assume that instead of being happy for me, it will only make people bitter. I did this with the cruise in February AND when Nate and I started dating AND when I got a certain position in LH this semester. I had one friend in college who was this way, anything good in my life was something that she resented me for. As a result, I stopped sharing my joy with her and eventually I stopped sharing it all together out of fear of alienating people. Well, that stops now. I am going to see my parents and I am announcing that I am SOOOOO excited!

I hope my kids are this cute :)

Laney has gone a little smile crazy recently. Here are a few pics from when I was over there on Saturday and she decided to bestow some cuteness upon her Aunt Abby.

Daring Adventures in Company Cars

Here are some pics I took while doing field research for a project I am on... they are too good to not share them with the world :)

We're pretty sure this is a sawed off Geo Tracker... It did have some power to it though :)

Holy Name Catholic School... for those times when choosing a saint is just too taxing.

I'm not sure what commentary should go under a picture of giant presidential heads except to say that I'm glad the truck is there to show you just how massive they are. This IS in Houston, by the way... if you want to visit, i'll be more than happy to hook you up with directions :)

Facebook Follies

So I signed on to my Facebook account this morning... you know, to avoid starting work, and I found out that I was in a relationship with Harvard. Not quite sure how I feel about that... I mean 1 guy is hard enough, I don't think I'm ready to take on an entire college.

By the magic of the print screen key I have been able to display said relationship declaration for you, my blog savvy friends. I am kind of at a loss because it isn't supposed to be showing up and it won't let me remove it. Because of this, I have decided to embrace my new relationship and list a few positive aspects of it....

~Harvard has nice colors
~Obviously I am dating somebody really smart
~There are decent odds that I am dating a future doctor or lawyer (or really smart but unmotivated liberal arts major using daddy's money to get a useless degree :)
~I can act like an intellectual snob anytime I want
~I've been wanting to go to Boston for quite some time and I assume that if this is serious enough to be announced on Facebook, then I will probably be visiting them soon

Lessons in submission, and other fun stuff :)

As most of you know (because you go there too), First Baptist Houston has been going through Colossians together every Sunday for quite a few months now. When Gregg started talking two weeks ago about Colossians 3:18, I have to admit that I was dreading it. I was raised in a super conservative church where submission is a prominent thing and I am therefore accustomed to this line of thinking. The reason I was dreading it is because I help facilitate Hometeam, a coed small group bible study that talks more indepth about the sermons every week. Society today teaches women that submission means servitude and loss of identity and many women are not raised in churchs that address these falsehoods. I knew this topic could be very volatile and it worried me.

Within the first 5 minutes of the sermon, Gregg busts out with the information that the submission topic will be a two part sermon....CRUD!!! I get a text message from one of my co-facilitators that showed that he was less than enthusiatic about this development as well. To cut a super long story short, here's the run down-

Hometeam Submission Week 1- Chaos. Many girls offended and/or alienated by comments guys made about submission. We get WAY off topic and end up discussing the fall of man and whether it's ok for women to have epidurals ( I couldn't make this up if I wanted to :)

Hometeam Submission Week 2- Totally unprepared, tired, sick and worried Jeff, David and I dive in head first and..... God is faithful!!! We had an amazing discussion that was truly beneficial and relevant. Nobody was offended and everyone participated (no small feat in a group of 28) and everyone benefited. Praise God!!

My niece is cuter than yours

This is Elena Joy Elkins at 2 months old... No competition :)