Make Your Move Tour

Went to a concert last night - Tenth Avenue North & Third Day

Tenth Ave North is a great band and actually they are the artist of the song that I walked down the aisle to at our wedding so I am kind of sentimental about that. But seriously they have a great heart and a good message.

Tenth Ave. North

Third Day is amazing too and they played a long time. We left a little before the encore because it was a very late night for us with work the next day but it rocked! I love the southern/ country / rock sound they bring.

I love paying to rock out in praise to God!

Easter Weekend

Had some friends come and stay with us over Easter weekend and it was a grand time. For the first time in a few weeks we had sunshine and warm weather and we definitely took advantage of it. We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo and meandered around, just enjoying the sights, sounds and sun. When we stumbled into the conservatory though, we stumbled into Spring. The first thought I had was, "So this is where you've been hiding!" It was so green and flowery and I never wanted to leave.

Many pictures and ooohs and ahhhs later we left the zoo and walked to Giordano's to meet up with another of their friends and have Chicago deep dish pizza. Oh so wonderful! Headed home on the train and due to some delays it took  2 hours. Yikes, but eventually we made it home and slept soundly.

It was great to spend time with friends and family for Easter and as always to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. We are grateful for the new life we can have in Him. And I was grateful for the reminder at the zoo of the new life (flowers) that will eventually be coming our way, hopefully soon.

The Day the Jeep Died

Goodbye Compass!

Monday April 18, 2011


This day started out much like any other day. However, not too far in it was clear that it would surely play out completely different than anticipated. I received a call from John at about 7am from a gas station. His clutch went out in his jeep, rendering it un-driveable. Not good. Ok. I need to pause here and take a short trip back in time. The last time we had this car serviced it had a major repair, and the time before that, and so on. We were already well aware that it was time to trade it in and get a new car. It was something we just had not quite gotten around to yet. 


That being said, this new event forced our hand and it was no longer something we could put off. John had the car towed to the dealership and then we ended up having it towed again to Carmax. I left work at lunch and met John at Carmax where after hours of thought, browsing, tears, discussion, prayer, consideration, frustration and surrender we drove home a 2008 honda civic. Dinner at Panera helped to ease the pain a little. 


It was a tough purchase because it was not in ideal circumstances or exactly in the budget but after a few days God really gave us peace about it and I can now be excited about our "new" car. It drives nice. So now we are just praying it lasts for a r-e-a-l-l-y long time. 

The Replacement

Let's go to Japan

I have been toying around with the idea of "visiting" different countries via our home for a while now. It's something I wanted to implement during the winter months to give us something to look forward to. I thought it would be lots of fun to cook food from another country, learn about the people and then pray for that nation over the meal. It didn't really work out during the winter months, however two weekends ago we were finally able to take our first trip.


In light of the recent natural disasters we chose Japan as our first nation. Certainly they could use our prayers.


Step Number 1: Research
We are blessed to have a great library! I was able to find an abundance of cook books to choose from and finally narrowed it down to one. Then I was able to find a travel dvd that talked about Tokyo and Kyoto. And I topped that off with a book on Japanese customs. We were all set for our trip.


Step Number 2: Shopping
I picked out a simple recipe and went to my normal produce store for the veggies we needed.We also happen to have one of the largest Japanese supermarkets in the country in our backyard so that was helpful. It actually feels like you are in Japan because many of the products have no english so you have no idea what they are. We bought some sushi rice, udon noodles, cookies and aloe drinks.

Veggies I used

Everything from Mitsuwa (Japanese Market)

Step Number 3: Learn about Japan

We watched the video and it was great. We both really felt like we learned about some Japanese history and much more about the culture. We got to "visit" those major cities and see how similar and different they are from our own. 

Step Number 4: Cook

As I mentioned before I chose a very simple meal of udon noodles and veggies. I also made some rice cakes but didn't read the directions very well and they had to refrigerate a while so we had those the next day. I was going to make green tea smoothies but it was too cold so we had some green tea instead along with our Calipco drinks. 

Ready to eat!

Rice Cakes

Dinner

Step Number 5: Eat

We opted to say a quick prayer before the meal so the food would not get cold. The noodles were very simple but really yummy. We actually have an extra package too so I look forward to making this very modest meal again sometime soon. The tea was, as always, very soothing. The aloe drinks were really good. John got strawberry and I had lychee. They kind of tasted like watered down flavored milk with a slightly acidic taste. And the cookies were good too. Overall, the meal was a great success!

Step Number 6: Pray

After the meal we had a prayer time. Probably just like 5-10 minutes but it was prayer focused specifically on Japan and the people there. We had a time of reflection after our prayer too where we just talked about the night. We both agreed that it was a great experience. We felt like after watching the video we knew better how to pray for the people. The video and the food put us in the right frame of mind, to a limited degree, to focus our full attention outside of ourselves for a little while. 

I don't know where we are going next or when but we'll be sure to update you on our "travels."