I Can Blog Again!!!

Wow! Where do I even begin???!!

I have  been absolutely paranoid to post anything on Facebook, Twitter, my blog, etc. for fear of spilling a HUGE secret I've been holding since shortly after Thanksgiving. Around Cyber Monday, I got a text from my BFF's hubby, Joe, asking if Miss M and I would fly out for JHo's (aka Jen's) 40th birthday hurrah. Are you KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW???? OF COURSE!

It helped that we were already in the state, celebrating belated Christmas with my husband's side of the family. Instead of flying home on Monday, we flew up to Sacramento. My parents picked us up and we hid out with them for a few days. I had the whole family on Facebook lock down! NO PHOTOS! No tagging! It felt like we were in witness protection or something! We had a few close calls, but we made it through.

We had a nice visit with my folks. My brother came up from the Bay Area and we got to see my other brother who lives near my parents, too. He works out of town, so we don't always get to see him when we're there. We had a little celebration for Miss M's, my, and my mom's birthday as they are all in January. 

On Thursday, Mom and Dad drove us over to the Sacramento Airport. We met Joe at the cell phone lot and transferred all our luggage over to his truck. We said our tearful goodbyes and got in the truck. Jen's other BFF's, Jenni, Hilary and Mr. Hilary were also flying in. I went to terminal A to meet up with Jenni, he went to pick up Hilary and Mr. Hilary.

The timing was perfect and everything was falling into place. Jen and her friend, Erika were shopping at Ikea while we were rounding every body up. He had given Jen a gift card to Joe's Crab Shack that morning to ensure she would have lunch at the right place!

We were approaching the restaurant just as Jen and Erika were walking in! We couldn't believe we had such a close call! Thankfully, Erika spotted us and quickly ushered her through the door. Whew! We got parked and headed to the restaurant. Joe went in, gifts in hand. The rest of us waited impatiently outside. Jenni's gift was in her luggage, which was delayed, so we sent her in first. We decided to have her call Jen as if to be checking on how her birthday shopping trip was going.

Jenni walked in to greet Jen while they were talking on the phone. It was PRICELESS! That had to be the absolute last thing she was expecting to see! Joe then handed Jen a present, which she set down to take it all in. Joe told her to go ahead and open it. Meanwhile, he's texting me to go ahead and come in with Miss M. She just got done opening it, wheels spinning in her head, when Miss M and I started walking toward her. She let out a big "NO WAY!" and gave us the biggest hug ever.

Jen was just getting used to the idea that Jenni, Miss M and I were there when we moved to a bigger table to accommodate every one. Joe then handed her one last present. This was the grand finale! It was a picture of Mr. & Mrs. Hilary!!! Hilary is another BFF from work, whom Jen has actually never met in person. Now that she'd been through this routine once, she had an idea of what the photo meant. In disbelief, she said "NOOOOOO!" as they walked to the table. At the same time, a waiter was asking if everyone in the party had arrived. He saw Hilary and hubs walking toward us and said, "Oh, I see you have two more." That was seconds before Jen opened the photo and I was about to step on his foot for blowing it! I don't think she heard him though.

We had some lunch and a couple of drinks at Joe's Crab Shack. We laughed and talked about all of the fibs we'd had to tell her to cover up for what was really going on. Will she ever trust us again? I hope so!

Then we headed back to Chico for some more partying. We had Chinese and Japanese food and cake that night, where Jenni and I gave her some craftiness we had been collaborating on. More on that later. She also received a "boat load of cash" for the cruise she and Jenni are taking in March. I thought that was pretty clever! It was a toy boat with various cash bills sticking out of the various openings.

On Friday, Miss M and I got to visit her peeps & teachers at her old preschool. It was so sweet to see all her buddies come over and swarm her with love and hugs. One teacher even shrieked when she spotted Miss M! After that, we headed to a tea bar to visit with a few of our Chico friends. I had the opportunity to connect up with another special friend back at Jen's house before we all headed out for apps and drinks downtown.

I'm still pinching myself that this all happened. It was such a huge blessing for me to be able to go back home after moving to Texas just a few months ago. It felt good to see the people I miss so much. On top of missing our old friends and family, now I miss our new friends: Mr. & Mrs. Hilary (Mr. Hilary's name is actually Brett, by the way!) and Jenni as well. Even Miss M said she was going to miss them on our journey home.

Check out the events from Jen's and Jenni's perspective on their blogs.

Who Knew It Would Be This Hard?

About 13 years ago, I walked into the First Church of the Nazarene in Chico, California. I was greeted by a lovely woman, named Laura, who knew exactly who I was (though we'd never met before), who had invited me, and showed me where to sit. The pastor's sermon sounded like he'd had spies falling me around for weeks and written it just for me. After church, the women had a baby shower for the youth minister's wife. I was invited! Whoa! This was my first time, and they were already including me!

I knew I didn't have to try out other churches. I think I went to one with a guy I was dating at the time, out of obligation. I already knew, though, that the Nazarene church was the place for me. It had nothing to do with the music, the doctrine, or anything else. It was the way the people made me feel. It was the way they accepted me for who I was and invited me to be a part of their family.

We went through a lot of changes there. A year or two after I started going there, our pastor retired. We had some visiting pastors, and then an interim pastor. Finally we got a permanent pastor (or so we thought) and felt like we were moving forward again. My best friend and roommate, Michele and I got heavily involved in ministry and built strong friendships in the church. That pastor changed the name of the church, made a few other changes, then left our church after a short time. It was about a year, I think.

Finally, a young (early thirties?) pastor from Washington came to interview with our church. He had all kinds of fresh ideas for making our church relevant in our community. He was a little geeky and really into audio and video. His wife was sweet and authentic. She didn't put on your typical "pastor's wife" heirs. His daughters were (still are) adorable! Yes! Yes! Yes! This is the one!

Things kept humming along. In 2005, pastor Ron gave me the job of outreach coordinator. That title didn't come with much of a description and nothing in the way of a budget. I knew I was in charge of training and scheduling the greeting team. I knew I was responsible for coordinating and planning a few well executed large events per year. That translated to a concert on our football field behind the church, and an annual Superbowl party.

Pastor Ron gave me the number of a guy named Kevin to call for help planning the concert. More on that to come in tomorrow's post. Spoiler alert: that guy is now my husband! With a lot of help from people in the church, the first Superbowl party was a huge success. Over the years, it actually got so big, we had to put it on hold a while until we could some things in place, such as child care, to deal with the large volume of people showing up to watch the big game on our larger than life screen.

Forgive me for getting a little off track while I reminisce a bit. I just want you to understand that church was a big part of my life. It wasn't about religion, either. It was about the relationships.

I knew it would be a challenge to find a church for our family when we moved to Texas. I had been warned that churches in the "bible belt" were considerably old fashioned compared to the casual worship atmosphere we were used to.  We waited a week or two to get settled in before we tackled the task of finding our church home here.

The first one was so big, no one even knew we were new. We weren't greeted, or shown where to go. Even dropping the girls off at kid's church was a very cold experience. In the end, we brought them with us to grown-up church. They all start to blend together after that. We did attend the Nazarene church here one week. While the people were super friendly and welcoming, it just still didn't feel like "home" to us. We decided to come back if we just couldn't find anything else. We attended another church that currently meets in a high school. That one was a little better as far as being more contemporary, but not so much on the friendliness side.  It was ok, but it still didn't feel like "the one." Another church we attended was borderline scary, and we ended up walking out halfway through the service. Note to self: be very wary of "non-denominational," that can mean ANYTHING.


I was getting really discouraged. I began to question my motives and what I was looking for. I mean, it's not supposed to be about how I feel, right? It's supposed to be about worshiping God, studying God's word, and serving, right? Yes, it's about all of that. I can even do all of that from the comfort of my home. But there's one big problem with that. We were made for relationships.

This past Sunday, we attended another church. I had found the website for this one before we ever left home and thought it looked promising. I had forgotten about it though until Saturday. It really looked like a casual, comfortable place for people to come meet Jesus. A little burned out and skeptical from our previous experiences, we got up early, went to breakfast, then went to the church early. After the walk-out experience, we wanted to check things out before checking our daughter in to kids' church.

The minute we walked in the door, we recognized the music the worship team was practicing. It sounded just like the music at our church back home! A couple of ladies greeted us, asked if we were new. One offered to show me to kids' church. Kevin did his usual thing and went inside the sanctuary to check things out and strike up conversation with the sound guys. He gleans a lot of important information this way.

It turns out the gal giving me the tour was the children's ministry pastor's wife. She was very genuine with me, asking questions and listening. There was one question she hadn't quite caught the answer to, so she admitted that and asked me again. Part of our conversation made it clear, without either of us coming out and saying what was wrong with it, that this church was NOT like the walk-out church. Their names were slightly similar, but no, they are very different. I could tell the pastor's wife was picking up on exactly what had bothered us about the other church.

We think this is "the one." We'll be back again and may even get plugged in to the Wednesday night dinners and monthly connect groups. We're taking it one day at a time. Relationships take time, after all! I am cautiously optimistic that we have found our church home!