Anniversary Trip to Vegas

Matt and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. We stayed for 3 days, but I'm pretty sure we walked 1.3 million miles...give or take. :) I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking... Please excuse the lack of make-up and the super shininess (is that a word?). It was the last stop of one of the days we walked all day long. We always tried to end with the fountains, they were our favorite part of Vegas!

Here we are in front of the Bellagio. Matt was excited to go into this one because he LOVES the Oceans 11, 12, and 13 movies. It was fun to try to figure out what was filmed where!

This is the statue of liberty at New York, New York. We ate several meals inside. We stayed in the Monte Carlo, which after visiting all the other casinos, we discovered that it was one of the quietest casinos on the strip. Very family friendly, and lots of older couples, which was kinda nice it was quiet and we slept great!

So on the first morning there while we were still asleep, there was a knock at the door. I of course freaked and jerked the covers over my head. I couldn't figure out why Matt wasn't freaking out, and responding to my shrieks. He calmly answered the door and brought in this gorgeous vase of flowers for our anniversary! He had called the hotel ahead of time and had it arranged to suprise me!

This is the picture we took after we went to the Blue Man Group show. It was incredible, and I highly recommend it. After the picture I turned around to thank him and to say how much we enjoyed the show. He of course stared at me with the same look that you can see in the picture. I guess you just can't take the Oklahoma out of the girl no matter where you put her. :)

It was a fantastic trip, and a great time for Matt and I to celebrate 3 years of marriage. The Lord has blessed us in so many ways, and the relationship that Matt and I have ranks pretty close to the top of the list!

ummm....is this thing still on??

So I've totally dropped off the face of the earth this summer. I have no excuse other than the busyness that was our summer. I'll give you a rundown with some pictures and explanations, and I will be better about posting...I hope! :)

The summer has been completely full of all kinds of wonderful things, but it has definitely left me wishing for a few less events scheduled on our calendar. More time to cook out, and take my puppy for walks, and sit on the couch and relax...definitely more down time in the near future I hope!

I, along with around 20 other people from my church, went to a local lake here in Oklahoma and put on a week long Backyard Bible Club with carnivals in the evenings. It was a great experience, and so fun to get to work with people as they experience mission work for the first time. Some of the kids we worked with came from backgrounds that would make most adults shudder, and yet they were still joyful. Some of it was heartbreaking, but it was rewarding to get to be his hands and feet and love, hug, and teach these kids for a week.

Here are some pictures from our trip...

I didn't want to put any pictures of the kiddos on here, because I'm not sure I'd appreicate that if I was the mama!

I also went with Matt to Falls Creek as a sponsor. I just love those kids! We had a great time, and it's such a blessing to see their eyes be opened to all sorts of things going on around the world. I was really impressed with the way that they helped to focus them (and us adults) on others and the pain, sorrow, hunger, etc. that is all around them. They also encouraged them to not be so centered on themselves. I unfortunately was only concerned with myself at their age, so it's great to see them teaching that!

We did fun things like karaoke and theme nights, it was a blast! More pics...

This is Matt and his twin brother Mike, and their little sister Mallory dressed up!

Lastly, Matt and I helped with VBS this year, and the theme was Veggie Tales, The Pirates who Don't Do Anything. Matt was an eccentric scientist named Professor Red Beard, and I was shipmate Ali who was in charge of the 4 year olds. We had a blast, but we were TIRED by the end of the week! Here is a picture of us in our costumes. The picture is terrible, but you get the idea.

There's more, but that's enough for one catch up post! What have you done this summer? Did you relax enough and take time to smell the roses?