joy!

i'm so excited!! my wonderful friend joy is getting married tomorrow! it's going to be a beautiful day. she and matt are so great ...they are stinkin hilarious together! anyone who has spent any length of time with them knows how much fun they are.

joy, if you are reading this, i pray only God's very best for you and matt in your new life together. i hope you know how much your friendship means to me. i know tonight and tomorrow are going to be crazy hectic, so i'll just say now that i truly believe you and i crossed paths the way we did for a reason. i'm so happy for you! you've worked so hard to make this day perfect and i know it will be. i'm praying for you!! love ya!

oh...and, amy...you're next!!

blardy blar-blar

i love that saying. and i love lexi for saying it.

tonight is bab nite. should be good.

i'm probably the only person who is ever going to read this. except for maybe some random taiwanese kid who has nothing better to do. sorry, taiwan, i got nothin.

Pressy

my sister sent me some pictures of my mom's dog preston...we call him pressy for short. he is the sweetest, squishiest dog ever.

nothing

i'm not really sure why i'm even updating this thing because i have nothing to write about.

ummm....i really have nothing. you know how you read someone's blog and they're like, "i don't really have anything to write about..." but then they end up writing a whole paragraph on some random topic? i do that.

refuge and jr. refuge went great last night. i love the new seating set-up. i love the new lighting. i love that we can haze again. it felt good. the energy was good, p&w was awesome, mike did a great job. i am so excited to see where God is taking us. this generation is very different than the ones before it. i feel myself loving them more and more. i've never seen so much hurt. if we can be a haven for them, i'll do anything to make it happen. we've got an amazing team. the leaders in refuge are the best in the world. i love them all. it's like they're all experts at what they do. they do it in excellence and they do it for others, not themselves. that's the way it should be. we're just gonna keep getting better.

this is totally off topic, but i'm all over the place today. my husband and i recently started tivo-ing ed young's program. it's so cool. once i start, i can't stop watching. if you get the chance, watch it, you'll be intrigued.

k, kiddies, that's it for now!

wind

whoa, holy majoley, the wind was psychotic last night. i think i heard that it was like 60 mph. it was so loud it kept waking me up. when i finally woke up to get ready for work, i looked outside and our trashcan was flying down the street! i was in my pajamas, so i wasn't about to be the nutso neighbor chasing down an awol trashcan. i got ready and decided before i left that i'd go get the dumb thing. it was so stinkin windy! i was running down the road fighting the wind and i cannot even imagine how ridiculous i looked. it was like walking against a wall. try to picture it. you'll laugh...i did.

lauren = 400lbs

my wonderful hubby got me an elliptical trainer for valentine's day. i've wanted one for a really long time, so i was thrilled! he put it together last night so i could use it this morning. so, i got up half an hour early and started my workout. i was panting like a dog i was so short of breath. you would have thought i weighed 400 pounds! once i was done, i ran upstairs to take a shower, cause....ew. anyway, when i got in the shower, i was so dizzy i almost passed out like 3 times! i'm really seriously out of shape!

valentine's day

this day has always been kind of an enigma for me. i never really understood the concept. as a kid, you buy valentines, sign them, seal them, and put them in each others decorated boxes. back then the only significance i saw in it was who got the most cards. it was fun. but as i got older the idea of it changed. ok, so this is the day you do something special for the one you love. see...the only thing is, valentine's day will never convince me of something i'm already sure of. my husband does such an amazing job of letting me know how much he loves me. he does it everyday. don't get me wrong, who doesn't like feeling special on this lovers holiday? but the goal should be to make sure that person you've committed to feels special everyday. i guess my point is, i don't need some fancy holiday to prove how much i'm loved. today, i want to be at home, not in some fancy shmancy restaurant, with my husband. i want to cook dinner together. that's all i want. maybe i'm weird, but just being with him is enough for me. i hope i don't sound like a scrooge. i'm just thankful i've been blessed with an amazingly generous, caring, romantic, loving, handsome, sweet husband who shows me everyday how much he loves me. i love me some lorin foster.

relationships

i find it strange how relationships can change over time. it's not always intentional. sometimes it just happens. distance, be it geographical or emotional, causes a gap between people that may have at one point been close. as much as i wish that wouldn't happen, it does. the love is always there, but maybe the relationship has been neglected. i guess that's the way our relationship with God is. you could have at one point been so close to God you could hear His heartbeat, but somehow, over time, the relationship was neglected...only the one being neglectful is always us. He still loves us with all of His heart and it's not that we've stopped loving Him, but we don't put the time in to get to know Him more. just something i was thinking about...

great driver

i went to a baby shower on sunday. on my way there i got stuck behind someone going kind of slow and i was seriously tailing them. as we were driving, i realized they were also going to the baby shower. i felt awful! i apologized and we laughed it off. well, yesterday i was pulling into giant eagle and as i was turning into a parking space, i realized the person on the right hand side had their back door open. i slowed down after almost crushing them and thought i had better apologize to this poor lady trying to put her child into his car seat. as i was getting out i heard my friend joy (who was meeting me there) talking to the lady and i thought she must really be mad because she's complaining to my friend! as i came around the car i saw that it was the same person i was tailing on the way to the shower! i barely ever see this person and in less than one week, i almost wrecked into her twice!!!

oh...and hi, dad!!

just like Him

isn't it just like God to provide exactly what you need when you need it? yesterday was what i needed. He's so faithful. isn't it great that no matter how much we fail He stays faithful. we don't deserve it in the least bit, but He's always right there...even in the small things. i'm not going to get into details, but my dad called me yesterday and said the things i needed to hear and he doesn't even know it. i love that!

my cakes 2

i had to split the posts...

here's another pic of lorin's b-day cake.

these are some of the cookies kelli and i made for Christmas!

this was my last cake for course 3. (it got a little smashed in the car.) it took 4 hours to make the roses and leaves for this cake.

let me know what you think!

my cakes

here are some pics of the cakes i have made over the past 3 months:

this was my very first cake. it's looks weird. it looked better in person - ask josh.

this was a cake from course 2. it took about 9 hours to make all of the flowers on the cake.

this is the cake i made for lorin's birthday.

emergency?

i was driving down elm rd. yesterday and was coming up to the intersection of n. river road. i heard a siren and saw people pulling over which created a bit of chaos considering 4 lanes of traffic were all trying to get out of the way. i saw a fire dept. ambulance coming through the intersection very slowly with it's lights and sirens blaring. i naturally assumed there was an emergency until i saw them get through traffic only to turn there lights off and pull into kfc. some emergency. they couldn't have waited for the lights to change and get through traffic, no no...they NEEDED their greasy chicken NOW. please, people.

anyway, we're getting a chilis and a coldstone in niles!

woohoo!

i know after a post like the previous one, this will probably make me sound like an emotional psycho, but i am so excited!! i just found out joy is moving into our neighborhood!! she and matt are going to be living close to 1 minute from my house! woohoo!!

enough

the way i've been feeling lately is something i have a hard time describing. I wish more than anything i could, because i'm getting tired. for those of you who have been there for me, thank you. you mean more to me than you know. i wish i could scream. i wish i could tell the world how i feel, but i can't. it's so hard to describe. i'm in this new place in my life and i've never felt more unsure. the only thing i can be sure of, aside from my husband's love, is the reason i live in the first place. i need God. words don't do justice to how much i need Him. it's easy to say that, but when i feel scared and alone, for some reason, He's the last one i go to. i don't understand it. maybe this is what i need. maybe i need to be absolutely at the end of my rope to become as desperate as ever for Him. i realize what a cliche it is to put a song on your posts, but i don't care.
all i have to give/this is all i have to give/ broken without words to speak/through it all, i hear You calling me/You say come, You say come/ let My arms around you be enough/ You said come, child come/ to My arms of love/this is all i have to give/ this is all i have to give/ lay it down here at Your feet/ offering You all of me/ this is all i have to give/this is all i have to give/ broken without words to speak/ through it all i hear You calling me /You say come, You say come/let My arms around you be enough/You said come, child come/ let My arms around you be enough

"enough"-daniel eric groves

today

first of all, i'd like to thank God for the beautiful weather we've been having! so, today was nice because i had the day off...thanks martin luther king jr.! anyway, i cleaned the house, did laundry, and went grocery shopping. i know, i know i'm so "domestic". when i got home from shopping, lorin and i decided to make dinner together. it was so much fun! we made parmesan crusted chicken and lemon, cilantro, and parsley stuffed tomatoes. it was sooooo good. i've been trying to be supportive of my husband's diet (low carb) even though i'm italian and could live off of bread and pasta alone. so, the tomatoes were something i've never tried before. you hollow out big, beefsteak tomatoes. then you mix ricotta cheese, lemon zest, cilantro, parsley, garlic, an egg yolk, and 2 scallions and put the the mixture into the hollowed tomatoes and bake them. they were amazing! i know those few of you who read this are probably already asleep, but sorry! this is what interests me. well, i think that's enough boring info for now. i'm out.

my couch

our new couch was delivered today. i loooooove it!

random

this is going to be a pretty random post, because i don't really have anything specific to talk about. do you ever look back over your life and think, where did the time go? i feel like i'm standing still and time is running full force past me. lorin and i will have been married for 3 years in may. this year, we will have been graduated from high school for 6 years and will have been together for that same amount of time. if someone would have told me 10 years ago where i'd be right now, i'd have smacked them and called the police. i never would have imagined i'd be married to the guy that picked on me relentlessly in 6th grade. i never would have imagined i'd be living in howland -- my sister's probably the only one who would understand that. i never would have imagined so many of the things i'm walking through right now. sometimes life scares the crap out of me. i guess what i'm trying to get at is it's easy to look back over your life and wonder how and why things happen the way they do, but what good would it do? i could very easily get lost in the past, but i know there is something in front of me that is so much greater. i have gotten so frustrated lately with people bad-mouthing our area. it's not like i don't see what is in the natural. there's a lot to doubt looking through our eyes. but, deep in my heart i know that our area is called to something amazing. no one in the world has to believe it with me, although i know some do, but i know that God did not create warren just to abandon it. when lorin and i got married, we where dead set on moving to south carolina. we would have done anything to just go. but, in submitting to God's will, we realized that's not where we were supposed to go. we are right where we're supposed to be. bottom line, if you hate our area, that's fine, but wait till you see what i'm believing for.

Christmas

amy sent me a couple pictures from christmas at my uncle's house:

pictures

here are some pictures of where we were:







this was our cruise ship. it was called the mariner of the seas.








here's dunn's river falls in jamaica.












this is pinnacle peak in scottsdale, arizona.












this is the spa where i had my facial in phoenix.




six different states, six different countries, all in one year.