may highlights.

Y'all it's still raining. There are currently 37 counties in Texas that have areas of flooding! It's been a crazy amount of rain this month. At least we now have plenty of water!

Here are a few highlights from May:

• Skye and Derek came through town earlier this month! We played Top Golf together. It was my first experience and I didn't miss the ball as often as I thought I would. So glad Skye is back on US soil!
• Watermark had their baptismal Sunday service. There were like 500 people getting baptized! It was a really awesome to hear the baptizies (I don't know if that's a word!) testimonies. After the service, everyone headed outside to get baptized and enjoy a free lunch!
• One of the service companies that Stephen works with had a crawfish boil! It was nice to not drive 6 hours to eat a mud bug.
• Allie O. got married! The O'Neals have been our family friends forever. It's so weird to think little Al is married, but I'm so happy for her and Cory! Congrats! I was so blessed to have all of my family together for Memorial Day weekend. It was long overdue!

Not pictured:

• Hannah and her family were in town for a baseball tournament. We were able to hangout and have a cookout at her Uncle George's! I could definitely get used to her being in town more often. :) Actually...I think I could get used to any of my Louisiana family/friends being in town all the time!!

Only ONE MORE WEEK of school left!!! For some reason this year has really drug on and on. I was asked to write curriculum for my school district so I'll actually be working all of June BUT I will be working with adults. Praise the Lord! I don't have to see a teenager until August. Woo woo.

Lots of fun trips coming up this summer -- be on the lookout for those posts in a few weeks!

december/2013 highlights.

Has December already gone by? Wait. Has the year 2013 already gone by? I cannot believe it. This past month and past year has been full of newness, surprise blessings (I'll explain this in detail later), blogging!, hardships, adventures, laughter, tears, grace, forgiveness, and provision of Jesus Christ.

Here are a few highlights from the twelfth month of the year:

• Stephen asked me to be his date for his company's Christmas party. It was so much fun! I got to meet the guys he works with and his boss. I'm so excited for him and his new job. Jesus blessed him with the perfect job.
• My small group had our annual Christmas party. We did a potluck dinner and I brought boudin. Everyone loved it! We played games and visited. Still can't believe I have such an awesome Christian community to do life with. 
• I think the biggest surprise blessing of the month and year happened a few weeks ago on a regular Tuesday evening. After coming home from work and showering, I came downstairs to a house covered in sewage. Yes, you read that correctly. It was an absolute nightmare and I hope no one ever has to experience it.  Long story short Jesus TOTALLY blessed me through it. I had to have all my floors replaced and luckily, insurance covered all of it and MORE. I was able to upgrade to beautiful hardwood floors and put some money in the bank! Never would I have been able to afford it, IF my house hadn't been covered in crap. Gross. I know. Jesus truly does work in mysterious ways. 
• The sunset picture is one I shot while finishing a run in the park down the road from where I live. You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. I am so thankful I have this park to escape to after a long work day...even if it's in the middle of the city. 

Here are a few highlights from 2013 (most of these have been mentioned in previous blog posts, but I wanted a quick summary of this eventful year!):

January: Started my very first blog "Sojourner Stories." No explanation for the start of this blog other than Jesus laid it on my heart. Praying about a change in my life. New city?

February: Visited with HR in Dallas to discuss a potential teaching job. Praying. Is Dallas the right place?

March: Spring break trip with my mom to the beach & celebrated my birthday. Praying about making a big move to TX.

April: Attended my first real Louisiana festival. More prayer.

May: Attended a teacher job fair in Dallas. Finished my first year teaching. Feverishly praying. Would I be in DeRidder another year?

June: Anxiously waiting for interviews...got two interviews. Got a job! Prayers were answered. Went to Boston and New Hampshire for vacay. Praying.. where would I live?

July: Hosted a baby shower for a dear friend. Signed three contracts of possible future homes, one of them was the answer to my prayers! Packed up all my belongings and...

August: Moved to Dallas. Unpacked all my belongings. Started my new job. Praying for strength. 

September: Faced major spiritual warfare with all the unfamiliarity in my new chapter of life. Struggled with working for huge school district. Found my new home church. :) Praying for more strength & discernment. 

October: Still battling spiritual warfare, but confident Jesus has me right where He wants me. Made new friends at church and joined a small group. Mom and dad came for a visit! Praying in thanksgiving! 

November: Peace was established at my job and confidence restored. Thanksgiving celebration at my house with the whole family and friends. Praying & thankfulness. 

December: Final exams (no fun for students or teachers!). Christmas vacay (fun for students and teachers!). Mom and dad came to the rescue during my house catastrophe. Traveled home to Louisiana for Christmas break. Caught up with old friends. Spent time focusing on the goodness and generosity of my Savior, Jesus Christ. In awe of His power physically, spiritually and mentally over the entire year. Never would I have been able to do an ounce of what He did THROUGH ME without constant prayer and discernment. HE LIVES. 

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities---all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:15-17 (ESV)

icemageddon.

You can have all the plans in the world. You can train for a half marathon for months and be so excited to run it. And plan on race day being a blast. You can plan on your brother and sister-in-law coming to visit and doing fun things. But when an ice storm hits all your planning goes kaput. 

This is what happened last weekend. Everything in north Texas was frozen solid.

Icemageddon day 1.

Friday. School was canceled. JOY.

My brother, Shelley and I woke up to see everything was as white as snow. At first, it was kind of cool. We got out and there wasn't another soul out on the iced-over roads (the four-wheel drive truck came in handy). We went to Target and the mall. They were both so quiet! The best day ever to get your Christmas shopping done. While going down the escalator in Nordstroms, I got the official email informing me my half was canceled. I cried. I had worked so hard for it and was super pumped about running it. But I guess I'll just sign up for another one! I'm thinking CowTown in February. :)

          







My friend Abbey was without power and joined us at my house! Surprise sleepovers are always the best. I made a pallet on the floor (something I haven't done since I was a child) and we watched "It's A Wonderful Life." My new favorite movie! I had never seen it and it was so sweet.

real professional photograph.

Icemageddon day 2.

Saturday. No school.

I had to get out of the house. Yes, the roads were covered with a thick sheet of ice, but I couldn't stay cooped up all day. The gym was open, yoga classes were in session, and I was going. I'd never driven on ice before so after helpful tips from Abbey and Grant, I felt confident enough to brave it out. It's hard to do anything real scary when you're going 7 mph. I made it to the gym! I did almost bust it walking through the parking lot. Geez walking on ice is hard. A kind young gentleman actually gave me a ride to my car after my workout. Haha. That was interesting.

Day 2 was pretty chill. I got Pizza Hut for dinner and ate way too much. Really hoping I'd wake up to all the ice being melted...

Icemageddon day 3.

Sunday. No school. Church was canceled.

Church was canceled?! Who cancels church?? Everyone cancels church when no one can drive on the roads. Luckily for me I had disconnected my cable TWO days before the storm so I had a lot to keep me entertained at my house. Not. So it was off to yoga again. Thank goodness for the gym!

A few hours later, I was back at home debating what I could do with my day...I thought about blogging at Starbucks but the ice storm wasn't over so I couldn't write about that. I could go to the movies...by myself? Do people go to the movies by themselves? I didn't have a choice. Most of my friends were too chicken to drive on the roads. "The Book Thief" was an excellent movie.

just me and my Starbucks to keep me warm. 

I just knew we would have school on Monday, the roads would be drivable and life would be back to normal.

Icemageddon day 4.

Monday. School was canceled. JOY?

Four days of nothing but ice, cold, clouds, cold, and nothing to do is not fun. I couldn't believe this was still happening! Sweet Abbey had the marvelous idea to decorate Christmas cookies. So Caitlin and I headed to her house for the afternoon.

Abbey doesn't take her Christmas cookie decorating lightly. Check out the photo below of her setup. I was impressed. Very impressed. My childhood Christmas cookie decorating consisted of one red tube and one green tube of the 99 cent Great Value icing and maybe a few green sprinkles. Abbey on the other hand had an art studio of cookie decorating! It was so fun.

I stayed at Abbey's house for the remainder of the day. We ended the evening with the good ol' Tim Allen movie "Santa Claus." I forgot how funny he is. 

Thank GOD Icemageddon day 4 was our last day of ice, cold, ice, cold, and more ice. It was fun while it lasted {mostly}.

back to baylor.

that magical time of year.

Baylor Homecoming weekend truly is a magical time. Pigskin, Friday night bonfire, Saturday morning parade, Saturday night football game...there just isn't any other college HC like it! And getting to spend the entire weekend with one of your BFFs makes it that much more special and awesome. (warning: this post contains more pictures than usual) 

Hannah and I met in Waco Friday night and had dinner at our favorite hole-in-the-wall secret, D's Mediterranean. If you're ever in the Waco area this is the place to eat! Then it was off to the bonfire.

We ran into the Chabot's too:)

After the bonfire, we were pretty sleepy and if you know Hannah and I at all then you know we needed a good nights rest for our run early Saturday morning. So after meeting up with a few of my friends from BU, we went to Chloe's apartment at LL Sams (my old home!) to hit the hay.

On Saturday morning, we went for a lovely run, Starbucks for coffee and HEB for grapes! P.S. I can't live a day anymore without a substantial amount of grapes. Substantial meaning at least 25.

45 degrees was perty chilly.

Saturday afternoon I got to have coffee with my precious, Anna and got to see Sarah Long, Ryan, Philip and Alison!!! My long lost Highland church, CG, El Salvador friends. It was great. My heart was so full. :)

S Long & Anna. 

And Saturday night you know it was game time! Sic' Em.

BU vs Iowa State -- smoked em' 

Confession: we didn't stay for the entire game -- we were winning by a lot and we were starving so we figured it was time for dinner at our second favorite hole-in-the-wall secret, Baris Pizza. But we got salads, haha. They make their own special dressing and it's to die for so a salad is just as good as pizza.

We finished off our Waco Weekend with a Sunday breakfast at Cafe Capp and a walk through campus. Sundays are always the best for strolling through campus...it's quiet and there are more squirrels around than people.

Hannah and I were discussing on our walk how different Baylor's campus is from others we've been to. There is peace and joy that you feel walking along the side walks, swinging on the swings. We shared with each other that (we believe) it's because Baylor is rooted in Christian teachings.  A few days ago, Jesus lead me to a verse in a Psalm that I feel confirmed what we said.

"Blessed is the nation whose God is The Lord." Psalm 33:12 (ESV)

And Baylor has been a blessed nation.

It was such a fun, much needed, weekend getaway. Baylor will forever have a special place in my heart. After all, this is the place that Jesus captured my heart:) And I just loved my time with Hannah. We ran, ate, sang, laughed, cried, and prayed together. Incredibly grateful for her faithful friendship.

texas state fair, y'all.

Public transportation, fried s'mores, no time schedule, and seconds away from dialing 911. I think these are a few things that would allow me to classify this post as an adventure.

In front of Big Tex.

I had never been to the Texas State Fair that is held annually in Dallas. It was on my bucket list while at Baylor, but I never made it farther north than Hillsboro. Since moving to Dallas I knew I had to make it happen. And who better to accompany me than my new friends, LG (Lauren) and Tiffani?! We decided taking the DART would be the cheapest and most convenient way to get there. So we hopped on at the Trinity Mills train station and headed south!

The forecast predicted rain so we all wore our rain coats in preparation to get wet, but luckily it didn't rain at all. As soon as we got there we started hunting down the food trailers. Isn't that the whole point of a fair? I decided on a BBQ chopped sandwich, Tiff got a corny dog & LG settled with a pretzel. We walked around and looked at all the different booths, arts & crafts. Then went and viewed the livestock. It reminded me of home. :)  We figured we had had enough exercise and wanted to eat something really good for us. We all agreed a fried s'more was the only appropriate option. It. Was. Sinful. No. Words.

We also found some fun photo props. I've always wanted to do this too!

Favorite pic of the day. Hands down. 

I felt like I was on a real vacation the entire day. The last two times I've taken public transportation was in London and Boston so it definitely didn't feel like a regular day. I had such a fun time getting to know Tiffani and LG. They are both super sweet girls and I'm thankful Jesus allowed our paths to cross at church.

After our fried s'mores, we got pretty sleepy and decided to start heading in the direction of home. Oh, once we got back on the DART we stopped in downtown Dallas to have dinner. Since we hadn't eaten anything all day. LG's favorite place is Spaghetti Warehouse and she convinced us we wouldn't be sorry for stopping. It was pretty good minus the fact I was miserable afterwards! Now it was really time for PJs and my couch. We were all so ready to be back... we hopped off the train at North Carrolton station.

This is where our evening really got interesting. As we were walking through the parking lot headed to where we had parked earlier that day, we didn't see Tiffani's car. Then we realized we didn't remember exactly where we had parked. We looked around for a little while searching for her white SUV. Not alarmed, yet. We thought from all the calories and fried food we had consumed that our brain cells had been damaged and our short-term memory was gone. Then we saw a sign we hadn't seen before. There was a parking fee --- that we didn't pay. We. Had. Been. Towed. Tiff dialed the tow service number and described her vehicle to them. The tow service didn't have a white SUV. We. Had. Not. Been. Towed. The guy told Tiff to call 911 immediately. Okay.....now we were worried. We walked up and down every single row in the parking lot just to be sure we weren't overlooking her car. No white SUV in sight. (Insert reassuring statements to Tiff that her car had not been stolen here!) THEN I had the bright idea to check our train tickets to be sure we were even at the right place! We were at North Carrolton station....our tickets said Trinity Mills station. Ding ding ding --- we have a winner! We were SO relieved we were at the wrong station. Actually, Tiff was SO relieved we were at the wrong station. Long story short there was some confusion about which train we got on earlier that afternoon. We had some friends pick us up and bring us to Tiff's UNstolen car. (Insert Tiff's joy and relief here!) :)

It made for an interesting evening and many laughs to come! Y'all so need to go eat some fried s'mores at the State Fair next year and double check your train tickets.

millsap & mineral wells.

Not only have I recently moved and started a new job, but my little sister has also set out on a new adventure! She moved outside of Fort Worth and works as a vet tech for an equine vet. I thought it was time for me to head west and see the place she now calls home.

Her and I are definitely living in two very different places! She lives on a ranch with cows, very large grasshoppers and silence. And I live in the city with parks, toll ways and noise. Both of our new towns are perfect for a getaway. On Friday night we ate way too much mexican (I woke up still feeling miserably full) and fro-yo and then she showed me the downtown of her little town. After dinner we were walking around and I said, "Where are we?!" It is still weird that we are adults and far from home. It's a surreal feeling at times.

On Saturday I woke up to watch the sunrise, read my Bible and drink my cup of heaven while Katelyn got some extra zzz's. It was such blessing to see the sky go from black to streaks of orange then pinks and yellows to finally light as the sun rose above the horizon.  Earth is so beautiful. I can't imagine what heaven will look like. While Katelyn was still asleep, I did some research and found that there was a state park just a few miles from where she lived. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to explore! So explore we did. The Mineral Wells State Park offers swimming, boating, fishing, rock climbing, horseback riding, hiking, and biking. We decided to hike the hills and brought Skyler along too. Unfortunately, Skyler is a bit of a diva and acted like she was dying the entire time, but we forced her to keep up the pace. It was a lot of fun! And how have I not mentioned the weather yet?! The past few days have been a miracle!! The high has been in the late 80's!!! Y'all this Texas and it's August. It's a miracle. During our hike, I told Katelyn it felt like we should be heading home to make a pot of gumbo and turn the LSU game on. Isn't it like October? It felt like it. Ah. It was such a great day! I am so thankful that my sister is so close to me now!

I headed home later that afternoon. Back to the city life. :) Stephen and I went and saw the movie "Jobs." It's about Steve Jobs the Apple guy. I would recommend it! It was very interesting to see what his life was like and how Apple was invented.

It's been a wonderful, restful weekend. My last relaxing weekend of the summer. Time to put my big-girl, multi-tasking pants on tomorrow. Vines High here I come!

One of Katelyn's many views.

july highlights.

July was full of fun! Here are a few highlights.

• My sister came in town for the Fourth of July & brought her new puppy, Skyler.
• Mrs. Susie & I dressed exactly alike on accident for a workout. Everyone thought she was my mom!
• I bought a china hutch at an antique store for $325!!!
• The engagements that I took for Nick & Kate were a hit I think because Kate used one for their "Save the Dates!"
• Hannah and I went to dinner and a movie. We got tickets to see Turbo, but about 15 minutes into it we were bored to death so we left and snuck into The Heat. Worth it. 

Here's to goodbye July and goodbye Louisiana! Hello Texas! :)

red, white & blue. i lurv you.

 Happy Independence Day!

Yesterday was such a fun day filled with food, family & friends! All of my family was together which was awesome -- even Katelyn got to come home!! My mom cooked us a "throwback meal," as she called it. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, and sweet corn. I think the last time I ate fried chicken was when I was about 14 years old. It. Was. Awesome. The only time my family is all together is usually on Thanksgiving or Christmas so it was such a blessing to spend time with each other on Independence Day. After we ate, we visited, played with the kiddos and the new puppy, Skyler. 

Later that night my sister and I went to L'Auberge in Lake Charles to see Eli Young Band play (yay for Texas musicians!). It was such a blast! We got to meet up with one of our old friends from high school, Shelby and I got to see my precious friend, Breanna, that I met as a freshman at McNeese. It had been years since I'd seen their faces so it was awesome to get to catch up. 

I hope you had a blessed 4th of July celebration too!

Eli Young Band.

Sister!

Breanna & Shelby!

summer workouts with my girl, hannah.

Ah. Yes, it is summer. Summer means so many things, but one of my favorite parts is I don't have to get up early to go to work. That doesn't mean I'm not getting up early! Instead of heading to work, I am heading to workout. 

One of my best friends is Hannah. She is from my hometown and recently graduated from Baylor too (Sic Em' Bears)! Not only do we have those two things in common, but we also have an unwavering love of being active. We've worked out together for the past two years off and on. Luckily, we are both in the same town for the entire summer which means we can workout together!

We decided early on that we wanted to mix up our workouts as much as possible in order to keep things fun, challenging, and adventurous. We actually wrote and signed our own contract to help us stay accountable.

"Cross-training" is the term we use to describe our various workouts. Our cross-training includes running, weight lifting, circuit training, biking, stairs, yoga, swimming, trail running, and occasionally walking. We have had SO much fun! One element of all our workouts is prayer and giving glory to our Father (that He so deserves!). Hannah and I both agree that this is the most important part of our workouts. First of all because the only reason we even have the ability to breathe and move is because of the Grace of God and secondly, we do not want to have any other idols before Him. Praying and giving thanks to Jesus keeps our minds in the right state. It's all for His Glory anyway!

Right now we are one month into it - below are pictures of our mini-adventures so far. I will probably have another post at the end of the summer being that we still have road trips to Baton Rouge and such on the calendar!

Biking the backroads.

This was our view on a trial run - Coopers Lake.

Perks to knowing the owner of Coopers Lake: layout & swim.

Circuit training essentials: music, mat, dumbbells, jump ropes, water, & Nike Training app.

Perks to working at a school: access to the track and stadium. 

Warrior Two.

Kids at heart.

We want to stay young for as long as possible.

Thankful and humbled by my workout encourager, motivator, and prayer warrior, Hannah.