giving it up

isn't it so hard sometimes to truly and whole-heartedly give something up to God? it's easy to say that you will, but not so easy to do.

the last month-ish has been a trying one for me. craig and i have gone through a period in our lives where we were both being broken by God. and not broken in a terrible and mean sort of way, but broken in a painful, 'let me put back the pieces' sort of way.

i found out a few weeks ago that i could no longer do my job due to my messed up back. i've had crazy problems with it in the past, and it hasn't gotten better. in fact, due to all of the bending/sitting on the floor/lifting, etc that goes along with being a preschool teacher my back was going to get worse. after a stressful blubbering weekend i gave my director my 2 week's notice. my last day was on friday...and i held together for the whole day...until about 10 minutes before i left. my kids asked me if they could come home with me since i wasn't going to be their teacher anymore and when i told them that they couldn't they cried...so i cried. it was really sweet and really sad.

i was struggling a lot with why this happened to me. i have such a passion for working with kids and i know that i am good at it. after much prayer (from me and craig, family, and friends) i was finally willing and able to actually give God my full trust. He always has a plan no matter how confusing and painful it may seem.

well, like clockwork...once i actually gave it all over to God the new job opportunities came pouring in. in fact, it's only been 3 days and i have been offered a new and fantastic position. i am now an assistant in the sales department for the omni hotel in fort worth. i'll be assisting 3 national sales managers (who helped win this omni the sales team of the year award) book clients at our hotel. i am so excited about this great career opportunity and i know that God opened this door for a reason.

so, i learned a very important lesson these last few weeks. God is faithful and is worth putting all of my trust in.

love.

craig's birthday

craig celebrated his 25th birthday at the beginning of this month. i can't believe he's 25! thanks to free airfare (courtesy of my mom being a flight attendant) and super discounted hotel rooms (thanks to my brother working at a fantastic hotel) we were able to have a great weekend in san antonio. we went all over the riverwalk, saw the alamo, went to the zoo and a japanese tea garden, and were able to relax. it was so great and i love spending vacation with craig.

date night.

craig and i are fortunate enough to be in a much better financial place than we were last year; thank God. since we have some extra $ we've been able to go out every friday or saturday for date night and it has been great! we've done the classic dinner then a movie thing a few times, we've gone on mini vacation weekends, and we've been able to explore some of dallas and fort worth.

last night we wanted to go out and i really wanted to dress up. i got a new dress from the liberty of london collection at target and i wanted to wear it. we were looking at going to downtown fort worth, but then remembered that nascar is there all weekend, so that probably was not the best idea. i moved my search over to dallas...specifically deep ellum. i found quite a few places that looked fun and just picked one: monica's aca y alla.

i picked the mother of all birthday/bachelorette/engagement/date places for those who love tequila. now, craig and i don't drink, but it was very entertaining for us to watch those that do. there was a live band complete with mexican rocker dance moves who invited guests up to the stage to shake some tambourines among other things. there were a few b-days and brides in the house so they started this huge conga line with all of them plus their groups around the restaurant and ended with everyone in the line getting tequila poured into their mouths. i'm pretty sure craig was terrified the whole time that the band was going to pull him up on stage. i would have laughed so hard, but craig would have been incredibly uncomfortable.

the food was good, the entertainment was hilarious and the company was superb. all in all it was a good date night that took us away from our usual. i love date nights with craig, but i'm sure that he'll be picking the next place we go.

love.