VALENTINE'S DAY: RED ROSES & THE PASSOVER

(Weird subject title I know...let me explain) Valentine's day was great. We slept in that morning and Josh woke up and went to get us some lunch/breakfast. He brought me back these beautiful flowers. I love the deep red color - very pretty. (Didn't he do such a great job?!?) Also, I love these occasions where I am ablet o get flowers as I get to enjoy having them around for several days after.

The rest of the day was very relaxing... later that afternoon we went up to church to finish our final new member class and went to the evening service. (Our church has the same service in the morning and at night so that you can choose which one you would like to attend.) It was amazing as usual - this week as we are reading through the bible as a congregation we were in Exodus and were learning about Moses and the passover. (In a way I was wondering if the sermon was going to tie a little bit more into Valentine's... maybe a sermon on love or marriage or God's love?) In a way I guess is was. God loved his people in Exodus so much that he provided a way for them to be saved from the Plaque of killing the first born son throughout Egypt. He told Moses to instruct each Israelite family to kill a spotless lamb and place the blood on the frame of their doors in order to be "passed over." The blood that was used by the sacrificial lambs by the Israelites to save their first born son's was a forshadowing to the New Testament where the blood of Christ is shed for our sins to be the passover of God's judgment on us. I am constantly reminded and in awe of Christ and the awesome sacrifice he made for us. I guess God knew the sermon that we needed to hear on Valentine's Day... the story of his love and ultimate sacrifice for us.


On another note - It is time for a change... sometimes I can become too comfortable with my surroundings and then one day I look around and decide - it's time to update! That time has come with the blog - this is what I have come up with for a new backdrop. Hope you like and I hope everyone is having a good week!

FEBRUARY SNOW DAY

Friday was definitely a SNOW DAY here in Birmingham. Well actually, I believe that most of the country had snow - the weather channel said that every state except Hawaii had some amount of snow yesterday - that's right even Florida had some snow in the pan handle. I think we got about 3 inches here in the Ham. It did not actually start snowing until about 10:30 or so. I was already at work and Josh was downtown at school working on a project. When it started snowing while I was at work I definitely ran outside in the parking lot - like the Florida native that I am - and stuck my tongue out to catch snowflakes on it. It was awesome. Most of the area schools were either already closed yesterday or decided to close at noon once the snow started. Everyone here always freaks out at the first little snow flurry as our city does not have any of the heavy machinery to clear the roads of snow and ice. Luckily most of the snow melted off the asphalt and so there was not too many traffic problems.

By the end of the day though... most everything was covered in white - as you can see from the pictures. I got home a little after 5:00 and that is when we took most of these. It was absolutely beautiful. We did not get to enjoy it for too long though - Josh and I have had colds for the past couple of days and did not really even feel like going out to enjoy it - but we figured that everyone would like to see them :) By this morning most of the snow was melted and gone.






Molly really enjoyed the snow. The last time we got snow in the fall there was not very much that stuck to the grass. This time it was piled high and she kept getting very excited and running into the grass and then kicking it all around. It was funny. The hard part of course was when it was time to come inside and she had big snow clumps stuck to the back of her legs in her fur.

Hope you all enjoyed them! Josh and I are gearing up for some of our trips that we are supposed to take soon where I am sure that we will see much more snow. I am supposed to go to Pennsylvania for training with work in a couple of weeks and Josh is planning to go to a Healthcare conference in Chicago in March.

ALABAMA COMMERCIALS

For all of you who once lived in Gainesville and used to join me in making fun of the ridiculously terrible local commercials that come on TV... these reach a whole new level. This make me sorry to say that I am now a resident of this state. Luckily I am not forced to view these every day, yet they do manage to sneak their way into my weekly line-up occasionally. I have attached 2 of my favorites so that everyone can get a taste of Alabama advertising and local entertainment.

Montgomery Flea Market

Pac Insurance

Hope everyone enjoys them!

PARENTS WITH PLATT

As you will remember from my post last week... our Pastor from Brook Hills here in The Ham, Dr. David Platt, came to speak at the Pastor's Conference this weekend at FBC in Jax. He spoke on Sunday night and gave a message on Missions and everyone said that is was great. I am so glad that our family and friends back home got to hear him. Here is a picture that my Mother-In-Law sent me. They went up to meet him! How funny is that! In the picture is my mom on the left, my mother-in-law in the middle and then Dr. Platt on the right. They told him all about Josh and I which is even more funny as I am sure that he has no idea who we are - but he was very nice about it. I am glad they got to meet him. We are truly blessed to be under his preaching every week. I knew that when God moved us to ALABAMA He was planning something very special for us - we thought that the only reason was for Josh to go to UAB for a Master's in Health Administration. Now we understand that we are under the preaching of David Platt to grow and learn and serve at Brook Hills. We are so excited to see how God is going to use us in the months to come.

Right now at church Josh and I are completing our new member's class called IMPACT. It is a 4 - week course that Brook Hills does to orientate new members with the beliefs of the church and all of the areas to serve. It has been wonderful so far - we are half way through it now.

We are still both members of a young married couples small group that meets on Tuesday nights. We love it. We are studying through the bible this year as a congregation and David preaches on what we read each Sunday. In this group we go over the preaching again to reiterate it. It is great that we are all in it together. Pray for us as Josh is supposed to teach the meeting in a couple of weeks on the 16th. We have met so many couples that we can relate to directly. I think we counted in our group last week that there are 8 couples in our group and in 5 of the couples, the wife is working while the husband is in graduate school of some sort - How crazy is that?!?! It is actually not crazy at all as obviously God brought us all together.

I am also still in a women's small group that meets on Monday nights. It is so wonderful to be with Godly women and to come together to share life and study together. We are actually completing a study in Romans right now that uses a different "study tool" each week to analyze, break down and study the chapter. It is great - definitely makes Romans a lot more manageable. As we go through our study we are actually writing a curriculum for a Mentor/Mentee relationship for someone to work with a new Christian and walk them through how to read and study the bible. I will let you know when we are done with it all. Christine leads the group and she is wonderful at keeping us motivated and pulling the study altogether each week.

That is the update of how everything is going at Brook Hills. We love it!