Actually, I should really say great morning or fabulous morning or amazing morning. Because I'm sitting on a balcony overlooking the Atlantic ocean drinking my morning coffee as I write you today. This was the traveling part I spoke about previously. And now you can see why I was so eager to be at this moment.
This. Is exactly what we needed. We are in Jacksonville, Fl for a pastor's conference, which on its own would be awesome enough. But we came down a day early to have an (early) anniversary celebration and stayed at this amazing resort right on the beach. We ate in the dining room last night with panaramic views of the ocean behind us and then spent a cozy evening in warming our feet by the fireplace in our room and just being. Time to actually sit and look at each other, talk, and enjoy each other's company without a million things competing for our attention.
We rose early this morning, walked down to the beach and saw the sunrise. Picked up some cool sea shells and just sat there in front of the mighty ocean feeling the gentle beginnings of sunshine cover our faces. It's funny how you don't realize how noisy your life has become until there's silence. The soothing sound of the tide rolling in and out has been the soundtrack to our day, carrying peace as the waves crash down on the shore and drawing out everything unlovely and unwanted in my soul and returning it out into the vast sea. There's a lot of good noise in my life. The sound of my children's laughter and delight would have been a fitting harmony to the song of the ocean. (Although mommy and daddy need time away, too, so we are glad they are home enjoying their time with G-ma, G-pa, and Aunt Jordo) But there's noise that has crept in that I don't like. So I'm happily recalibrating with an overabundance of silence, trying to iron out the seemingly permanent tension wrinkle between my eyes. We both are. I haven't seen Chris relax in, well, I don't really know how long. So I will say it's been both long overdue and very timely at the same time. And we are enjoying every moment of it and not so secretly wishing we had about one or two more days of it.
But we are also excited to be at the conference. Being around people, when our soul and spirit are properly refreshed, actually energizes us. We just work like that, and it's probably weird to some people. These relationships with other pastors and friends are very encouraging, life giving, and just as needed as the relaxation we're currently enjoying. So really it's the best of all of it. Having this time of rest and being together before hand will allow us to maximize our experience the rest of the week. And come home to the family we love and the life and job we love and be better people. We are so grateful. God is good.
I took a ton of pics early this morning, but to tell you the truth I don't want to take the time to load them right now, because I think we're about to go for another walk (like exercise pace) on the beach before we move on. I did snap this one off the computer so you can see where I'm writing from this morning.
Yep. I'm here. Peace out from the (temporary) Pate house.
Yes, it is. These have been exciting days around here. Specifically in the life of City Life Church. It's just been one of those momentum weeks, which we definitely welcome! Especially considering that in the life of church planting there are so many highs and lows that some weeks are quite the opposite. So you just have do decide you're not going to be governed by your emotions and how you feel about it, or even what you can see with your eyes and the circumstances. Otherwise, it's just an emotional roller coaster that wears you out very quickly. It's a faith thing. It's a this is what God called us to do thing. So just as with the negative emotions we don't get carried away with the positive emotions and good moments, either. However, I have to admit it's really nice to just stop and celebrate what God is doing sometimes. So that's what I'm doing.
Last week in our new members' class we had 13 people, which is awesome. Then on Saturday a big group of us went and helped an organization that helps people get on their feet and transition from being homeless to having a place to live and a job. Our church gave money, shopped for groceries, and then came that day to help assemble baskets to help 25 families have a meal for Thanksgiving. It was a great experience for the kids, too, as they came along and helped. The men actually ended up helping a single mom move into her new apartment. The lady in charge was saying it was a really big deal for that woman to see men helping her just for the sake of helping, not trying to get something out of her in return. Sad, but a great opportunity to bless someone. It was really a blessing to this organization, and they were talking about what an amazing spirit our church had and even noted how blown away they were with our diversity. We especially love hearing that :) So, go us! Am I bragging on Chris and myself? Nah. Am I bragging on our people? Every chance I can get. Best people in the world.
Forming the assembly line to put together the baskets.
Working hard. But there's always time to be silly, of course.
Addison is into this muscle pose thing, obviously :)
This was our group, minus three that weren't in this pic. Love these guys.
Then we topped off the week with record attendance (for the year they've been in the theater, and certainly in the six months we've been here) Sunday morning. And I am going to brag on my man for a second ('cause he would not do that for himself) and say he was on fi-yah when he was getting his preach way on speaking. Yep, good week in the life.
Now we have this week to look forward to. Our activity church wise has slown down, but it's being replaced with a HUGE to-do list to get our house ready to have a big Thanksgiving, get ready to have family here, and finally to go out of town. More on that very exciting last part later. So although I'm a little stressed out in all the prep work part of it, I'm super excited for this week. And the next. I won't share many more details about this week- I'll save it for more posts. It makes me happy when there's too many wonderful things to share in one post because of the danger of awesomeness overload.
But alas, I must go because the huge list I mentioned earlier is digging itself into my head like a bad, out of tune, broken record- thus making it impossible to have many free moments without feeling really guilty about it. That's where that darn achiever theme (Strengths Finder survey) becomes the blessing and the curse! Enjoy your night/day (whatever time it is when you read this), my friends. Peace out from the Pate house.
I seem to be having this problem lately about blurring the lines of actual reality and things that go on in my head. For instance, I will have a conversation in my head about something someone wrote me or texted me, and because I thought about it so much sometimes I actually think it happened. And then I don't actually do it. Interesting, I know. Senile, even. Can we just chalk it up to stress and call it a day? All that to say I have done the same thing here. Inspiration will hit me and I will write an entire blog in my head, and then I get on here and am almost shocked at what is last documented in relation to what I thought was on here. Yikes.
I'm just going to go ahead and go list style on you today. There's things to say but probably too random to try to string together in paragraph form... so here's the little dump from my brain about things making me smile lately.
1. Got to go see one of my all time favoritest artists, Brooke Fraser, at the House of Blues Tues night. It was awesome to have a night out with my super duper husband, and having a concert at a cool venue like HOB was certainly bonus. What was not bonus, however, was that we didn't realize we'd be standing the whole time. Our feet were killing us by the time it was over and we felt really old, but it was still an amazing show. I mean, who can sing like her?? Plus she's really funny and quirky so there was humor throughout. Like when the band started playing the opening number and she was in the bathroom, so she came out on stage and after the song was over proceeded to tell us all about her experience. And we totally had another one of those we-really-love-living-in-the-city times.
2. Peppermint mochas and peppermint hand soaps. My mind has been on the holidays constantly. And that always makes me happy. I'm going to be taking lots of pics of the amazing decorations (that are all already up) around the city. And our own decorations are coming out very soon, oh yes they are. Gonna change it up a little bit this year. Happiness
3. Lots of teeth around here lately. Missing, that is. I don't even know that I've mentioned it on here (but most of you know anyway) that Cadence is now missing her front two teeth. Knocked loose and then out before their time, sadly. The second one that was knocked loose came out a week or two ago. Don't know what it is about Pate kids and tooth trauma, but the same thing happened to Addison, if you'll remember.... and he lost another today. This one was on it's own though. So much so that the adult tooth is already coming in. Even the dog was loosing his baby teeth around the same time. Geez!
4. Saw Megamind on Monday. Seriously, that movie was so funny! And clever. We really had to talk Addison into not telling on us for sneaking in our own candy to the theater. Mr. Justice police did not think that was a good idea. He asked if it was illegal, and we lied said not exactly, but we explained how they didn't want you to do that because they'd just rather you come and spend all your money there. So he says, "So they're greedy." And with that he has justified us bringing our own candy into the theater and all is right in his world. So funny, that one. It will be interesting indeed to observe how his overdeveloped sense of oughtness will play out as he grows older.
5. Cadence is a very entertaining person to carry on a conversation with. Mostly because she usually tracks with you for the most part and then all of a sudden she twists off into her own interpretation of what's going on and then it becomes very interesting...For example- we were talking to her about going to serve families that don't have much food here in a couple of weeks, and she started saying yay!! Aw, that's sweet that she's so excited about that we thought. Then she says, "But I don't know how to do that. You have to teach me how to do that." We were a little confused until we realized she was talking about surfing. She thought we were talking about going surfing. And then we all got a good laugh.
6. It's been a little rainy and muggy the last few days, but the weather has been so absolutely delightful around here. Houston even has days that aren't humid. Who knew? Didn't know she had that in her, but we welcome the chill in the dry air.
7. Yay for two weekends in a row of family. Last weekend Chris's mom and sister (aka Nana and Aunt Alesha) came down for a conference so we got to hang out. This past weekend my bro, uncle Bryce and his girlfriend came from school because they had a free weekend and were missing us :) We so enjoyed our time. Being so far away from everyone now it's always nice to have that familiar feeling of family around. Especially for the kiddos. I only got one silly picture while they were here- shame on me for not taking more!
8. So Cadence is always the first one up (almost always) in the mornings. We've mentioned this before. She climbs in our bed and watches cartoons and inadvertently kicks me in the ribs and hits me in the face snuggles with her half conscious parents until we get up. With the time change she has been getting up just a little earlier than we'd like, and this particular morning she was in our bed with two My Little Ponies. And she was singing. Loud. Well, it was just so precious it was hard to be too grumpy about it (as admittedly I can be sometimes when it's early). Somehow, in my very sleepy stupor, I had the quick thinking to reach over and grab my phone off the nightstand and start recording her. This is what the ponies were singing to us this morning. And Chris and I rolled over, looked at each other, and started our day off with a smile. On our face and in our heart.
*I actually had to get a reenactment of the song because I just couldn't get the audio clip to post. And I'm not going to even talk about how long it took me to get this video to work and get on here. I'm just happy it finally worked. This version is better because you can see her. She colored a piece of paper for the stage for the ponies. And you can see when the song is over the ponies walk off stage. *
Just a snippet of things happening around here. Since I waited so long to post it's only a sampling but there you go. Peace out from the Pate house.
You'll have to excuse us, everyone. I have been working on a post for over 24 hours now trying to get a precious little video clip on here and am having major technical issues. So sorry- hope to get it on here soon. Just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and in case you have been checking the blog over and over again anxiously awaiting the next tale of tales. As if (wow that was quite the flashback to junior high). Happy Friday night all. And of course peace out from the Pate house.
I had the cutest ideas for my children this year for Halloween- Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Suess, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story, and other creative endeavors. What can I say- I was totally shot down from my family. Add that to the fact that I waited until two days before to go out and look for costumes since I didn't order anything from the internet and we ended up with superheroes. But don't get me wrong- that's what they wanted to be anyway. And being the Justice League fans we are it was appropriate. The only thing I wish I would have done was order Cadence a Wonder Woman costume from the internet, but Supergirl was just as cute. And another bonus is they were on sale- because I just can't bring myself to pay that kind of money for something they will wear a couple of times for a few hours on a holiday we don't even really celebrate. So it all ended up working out :)
Since we ended up with quite a few pics from over the weekend, I'm just going to direct you to my album already made- it's easier these days, plus 25 pics in a blog post is a little overwhelming, yes? Off to enjoy our cold, rainy day. I hope that summer knows it's not allowed to return that like crazy little spurt a couple of weeks ago where we set ungodly record high temperatures. It's just not right. But this week, all is well in the weather world and I'm so happy to have some cooler air. We all are.
