Currently

I am currently laying in bed at 1:42PM on Sunday afternoon with not a single plan for the remainder of the day. Heavennnn. 

Perfect time to write a post on life's current happenings. 

***

I'm currently reading this book:

And let me tell you, it's wrecking me good. Isn't it funny how Christian lingo takes these terrible verbs and turns them into profoundly positive statements. 

"This week's sermon wrecked me." "That bible verse destroyed me the first time I heard it."

AKA it spoke to me in such a way that it changed everything in the best possible way. And yes, that's exactly what this book is doing. I'm hoping to do a complete post once I'm done with the book, so more on this to come. For now, I'll just say that if you've ever once thought you struggle with insecurity, pick up a copy of this book stat. And then text me as you read it and we'll gush about how spot on it is. 

***

I'm currently mourning the ending of The Office. 

Unlike everyone else, I decided to jump on this bandwagon a year and a half after the show ended. I binge watched like nobody's bizznass, and finished all 9 seasons in a matter of months. I did fall asleep in a fair amount, but still. Just gives me permission to rewatch all 9 seasons at a later date. 

They were that good. I now understand what all the fuss was about, and I both want to work at Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, PA, and be BFFs with Pam and Jim. And Angela and Dwight. And everybody. 

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with my free time anymore. 

***

I'm currently getting back into real life mode after spending time at home for the holidays. Don't be fooled by the fake snow. We were most definitely in San Diego. 

***

I'm currently still relishing in the deliciousness that was consumed at last night's Friendsmasgiving. Yum. 

PJ and I made the green beans, and I was quite happy with how they turned out! 

Sauteed them with some olive oil, garlic, onions, mushrooms, and gave a good solid shake of sea salt and pepper, and boom. Yummy green beans. 

I just may volunteer to make them for Thanksgiving next year!

***

And now, I'm going to go pop myself some pop corn and pick a movie on netflix. But before I head out, I've got a question for ya'll. {Leave it to me to end a light post with a serious question}.

How do you Sabbath? The Lord put it on my heart to spend some time this year really developing a consistent pattern of rest. What does that look like for you? I'd love to hear it!

It's Sunday for me, but this will post on Monday. So happy Monday, friends! Over and out. 

Camping

Any other retired Indian Princesses out there? I have a solid 5 years worth of daddy-daughter-campout memories. Sometime I'll have to bust out some pictures. You bet I was looking fierce after a weekend with no moms around to force me to brush my hair.

I got to have a serious blast from the past when I joined my dad & sister's tribe at this year's family camp. I had already planned on visiting this weekend, so my mom and I drove up to Dos Picos on Saturday, which pretty much felt like driving straight into the 1990s for me. 

It was so great reliving my Indian Princess days, complete with bead trading, charades playing, and what every camp out needs: smores. 

Though, this camping experience had one thing that none of my others have had before. A recent purchase that helped me cross something off of my 2014 Bucket List.

I got me a good camera! This one to be exact. And even though I had no idea what I was doing, I had a blast testing it out. 

Can't really go wrong when you've got super cute models and gorgeous scenery, can you?

Glad the dads let us crash their camp out!

It was most definitely a successful family weekend. 

How was your weekend?

Scenes from Christmas

Happy December 26th! It must be hard being that day, such a touch act to follow. 

I hope you had a lovely Christmas! Ours certainly was. I have the pictures to prove it. 

We spent Christmas Eve evening with Grace Point Church. They did such a wonderful job of putting together a powerful & memorable service. We've spent Christmas Eve at this church quite a few times, and each year, it gets better and better! One of my favorite parts this year was the worship. Worship is always what gets me, and I loved the addition of a worship painter. The first time I saw worship art was at Influence Conference, and I was excited to have that again. 

The message was beautiful, inspiring, and packed with some serious truth. It was all about the confident hope that we find in Jesus, and it definitely blessed me. The service was ended with a candlelight portion, and this always gets me in the Christmas spirit. 

Our Christmas morning always starts suuuper early. I'm talking 6AM early. Mike & I outgrew that riiight about when Milissa was old enough to catch on to the excitement, so early rising remains a part of the tradition. 

This year, Santa thought Mil was extra good, and decided to bring her something that was a biiit too big to fit under the tree. 

All that jumping worked up quite the appetite, which was great considering we feasted on Thanksgiving part 2. 

 

Mom earned herself some serious bragging rights for this one. 

We may not have had ourselves a white Christmas, but I don't think any of us were too disappointed.  

Our traditions may be simple (getting up at the crack of dawn, staying in pajamas for 99% of the day, watching the sunset at the beach), but I love them.

For fun, you can check out this post from 2 years ago to see how much Christmas 2011 resembles Christmas 2013.

I hope you have yourself a fan-freaking-tastic December 26th. 

 

Weekend Rundown

Remember when I said I had two big ol' posts coming for you this week? Welp, this most definitely is not the second one. So hooray for you guys! A break from the serious stuff :)

But actually, in all seriousness (see what I did there? Just can't stray away from serious biznass), thank you all so much for your comments on yesterday's post. I'm not quite sure how I lucked out with the world's best blog friends, but somehow I did. 

And I am so darn thankful for every single one of you. You bless me more than you can imagine. 

But enough with the sap {for now}. And onto the weekend rundown:

This weekend's festivities took place in my lovely home town of sunny San Diego. A group of us drove down for a weekend conference with our company's young employee success & networking organization. 

It's a pretty darn amazing perk to our company, if I do say so myself!

This conference was packed with fun and networking. I know I don't talk business on this blog very much, but networking is huge in the working world. If you're still in college, and will be looking for a job in the coming years, start your networking now!

I know some people might equate networking with nepotism. And while I think these are two very different things, I can say that in both of my full time jobs, I've seen these alive and thriving in the workplace. 

Do yourself a favor and network. In my opinion, networking is just a fancy way of saying go out and make some friends. And that's exactly what we did this weekend!

Seeing as the conference was in my hometown, I also got to pack in some much needed family time to this weekend. 

Lucky for me, my mom, dad & sister are coming up to Santa Barbara this weekend! {We'll miss you, Mike!}

So you can expect to see a lot more pics of me and my mini me in a few days. 

Hope you had a fantastic weekend, and have an even more fantastic humpday!

Where I Come From

Today, I'm linking up with all of the lovely ladies over at The Influence Network. I cannot wait to meet all of you in September at Influence Conference! Don't even get me started on how excited I am, cause I won't be able to stop!

So, onto today's topic: Where I Come From. 

I'm a born and bred California girl. I was raised in San Diego, where I spent the first 18 years of my life looking like this most of the time:

After high school, I picked up and moved to a little place called Santa Barbara for college. Been there ever since. 

For the record, the Santa Barbara Mission is really beautiful. Definitely a must visit if you make it out to this neck of the woods!

(Give me a shout out if you do!)

And fun fact, my parents were married there!

It's kind of funny (isn't God always funny?), but I never intended on staying in Santa Barbara after college. I planned to move closer to home, some where further south. I imagined myself in Los Angeles or back in San Diego, but never did I see myself staying here. So much so that when I was applying to jobs, I intentionally stalled on my applications for companies here in town. 

But God always has a bigger and better plan, huh? A company reached out to me and seemed very interested, and I think most people would agree that a new college grad will never turn down an interested prospect. Not in today's economy, am I right? 

So I went after the job and ended up having the most wonderful experience at my first full-time job. Here I am on job number 2 (only 2 years post college, ha! God has a thing with finding me jobs, and I won't object to that!), and still in Santa Barbara. 

If I had left town, I would have never found my incredible church. The church that taught me what it looks like to let the Spirit into your heart, to surrender your entire life, and showed me how to stand back and be amazed as God is constantly changing my heart.  

If I had left Santa Barbara, I never would have found this incredible community of brothers and sisters that inspire me, challenge me, pray for me and point me closer to Jesus on a daily basis. 

And I feel pretty darn blessed that in addition to those incredible blessings, I still get to enjoy this:

I come from So Cal, where do you come from?

Just Your Typical 7th Birthday Party

So while I was home this past weekend, my sister had not one, but two birthday parties to attend. 

Don't you miss those days? When you got invited to everyone and their mom's birthday parties, and got to do fun activities, stuff your face with cake/food and  walk away with a goodie bag?

Well, I only went to one of the two parties, but I lucked out and happened to choose the right one. 

Why was that, you ask? Because the first one was at typical Chuck E Cheese. And the second one? Well, it was this:

A kid asked if this was a 2 headed bunny

Needless to say, I now have several ideas for my 23rd birthday (coming up this month!).