Edge Outreach

This past weekend I was given the opportunity to work with the Edge Outreach conference at my church here in Manhattan Beach. This is a ministry that seeks to bring clean water to indigenous people around the world with a simple filtration system consisting of a car battery and various parts you can buy in country. Their goal is to bring the gospel to these people while providing a very practical solution to a devastating need in their lives. What an inspired idea!

I have gone on a few mission trips myself and have noticed that sometimes when you take a group of Americans into a random country for a couple of weeks the effectiveness is questionable. Don't get me wrong, I believe we are all called to help the needy and share in the great commission but I just wonder if taking 20 high school kids without any practical skills into Mexico is really a blessing to them or to us. We go one time and come back changed, finally realizing how blessed we are to live where do and have the things that we do. But the focus is usually on us. What WE gained from it. How it makes US feel. And then we show the pictures of the building that WE helped build. All of those are great, life changing moments that I think we should all experience at one time or another, but what I learned this weekend is something so basic and practical that I truly hope it changes the way we do missions.

If you're interested in learning more about this awesome organization, including their participation in the recovery in Haiti, check out their website at edgeoutreach.com. Our conference was also mentioned in our local paper yesterday on the front page. You can find it here.

Family Fun

My family came down to visit this past weekend to belatedly celebrate my mom's birthday. She had a four day weekend for the Presidents Day holidays so the whole family came down to soak up some of our warm weather. We had a lot of fun, ate out at some great places, took the dogs to the beach at the Trump Gold Course and spent our Valentines day with 2/$25 tickets to Knotts Berry Farm. Too bad I didn't bring my camera to any of those things! We had a great time and are always sad to see them go. Here are my only pictures of the weekend off of my phone:

Dave amongst the Snoopys. (I think he was trying to scare my mom!)

Sarah and I enjoying the pop guns.

Thanks for coming to visit us! We love you and miss you already and our house is WAY too quiet now!

Colorado Fun

This past weekend, 10 of our close friends flew to Denver to visit the Blankenships! The Blankenships moved to Colorado six months ago and bought a magnificent house just outside of Denver. They welcomed us into their home, fed us yummy meals and entertained us for three days. We had so much fun and absolutely fell in love with Colorado!

Here is the whole group (plus a few extras) at the Blankenships annual Super Bowl party!

Adam and Dave hamming it up in the kitchen.

Me, Lacey and Angela exploring the Southlands Mall.

Dave and I at the ski resort.

The whole group skied on Saturday but still kept me company in the lodge.

Thanks to the Blankenships for a great trip to Colorado! We enjoyed watching the Saints win while eating our very first King Cake and sleeping in Adam's "Man Cave". We're already planning our next trip to Denver!

It's A Boy!

What are little boys made of?

"Snips and snails and puppy dog tails,

That's what little boys are made of!"

We went in for our elective sonogram on Saturday and they told us we are having a BOY! It was a pretty neat place in Redondo Beach. The room was large enough that we could have invited our entire families to come and find out the news with us and even watch the live sonogram on a flat screen tv on the wall. With there being a chance that we wouldn't find out and both of our families being from out of town, Dave and I went in by ourselves with the promises that we would call immediately with any news. The tech started looking around and figured it out pretty quickly, but our little guy was not completely cooperating for the picture taking process. He was hanging out pretty low and upside down! She asked us to walk around, have some lunch and drink some liquids and then come back. We came back with full bellies (and a very full bladder!) ready to take some good shots! She definitively said that we were having a boy and showed us some great views on the screen. We're still having a bit of hard time finding them again because it all just looks like blurry white blobs to us, but we just have to trust the professionals! We left with a handful of pictures in a bright blue bag and the knowledge that in five short months we'll be welcoming a little boy into our home.

I promise to post some more exciting things soon, but these pictures are just so amazing to us right now. This is not one of the ones with the view of our little guy's parts, but this is a cuter picture! He sure is getting big!