The Hills: Celebrations, Reflections, and Thankfulness...

Graham has been in Israel for 8 days now...3 more to go and he will be home! His step-father decided to take him to Israel for his graduation-from-seminary-gift...what an incredible opportunity! I cannot wait to see all of his pictures and hear all of his stories. It is a dream of mine to visit the Holy Land... To walk where Jesus walked... Wow... How incredible. I will get a hold of some of his pictures when he returns and put them on here...so be on the lookout for those.

During his time away I have had lots of time with my family, my friends, and by myself. It has been a good time to reflect on the past year and spend lots of quality and much needed time with Jesus. As I look back over my life and see where He has taken me to ultimately bring me to where I am today, I am truly overwhelmed by His grace in my life. Every friendship, challenge, relationship, and experience I have walked through has molded me into who I am today. There are many hard times that I have walked through that I can now look back on and see God's hand in it all and truly be thankful for the lessons I learned; and while there are other hard times that I still find myself asking, "Why?" to this day, I trust that those times happened for a reason and that they have taught me a little more about myself and more importantly about who I am in Christ. HE IS FAITHFUL. I can't say it enough. On November 8, Graham and I celebrated our one year anniversary (hence all the reflection over the past year!). We had such a wonderful weekend celebrating God's grace in our lives and thanking Him for blessing our marriage in the many ways that He has. When Graham and I married one year ago, I knew it would be incredible. I had no idea, however, just how incredible it would be. I didn't think I could love him any more than I did that day. Little did I know that I would fall more and more in love with him every day thereafter! He is such a blessing in my life. Here is a picture from that weekend...

I just realized today that I never posted pictures from Graham and Leigh's birthday party! First, let me introduce you to Leigh :) Leigh moved to Birmingham last year from West Palm Beach, Florida, and works as another Event Coordinator at Student Life. Her friendship truly is such a blessing. God knew that I would need her friendship at the exact time that He brought her to Birmingham and I am thankful to Him for that! This is me and Leigh...in Kenya...

So anyways, Leigh's birthday is just a few days after Graham's, so I decided that we should celebrate...with a Pumpkin Carving party :) ...let me interrupt here and just say that Graham and I are blessed to have such great community with the people we work with at Student Life...it's not often that people find themselves hanging out with their co-workers almost every weekend...we are blessed. Okay...back to the pumpkins. Although my mom says that I carved a pumpkin when I was younger, I have absolutely no recolection of it whatsoever - therefore, I considered this my first pumpkin carving experience and was so excited! Unfortunately, no one told me that I might want to start with an easy pattern... Thanks guys... My cat turned out...well...I'll let you see for yourself:

Don't laugh. And don't worry about the toothpicks. They became necessary to hold him together after I made one cut too many...