Proud

That would be one word to describe how I feel about my husband. Yes, y'all, we are going back in time to early December....These pictures are from our church's organization service. We have been super involved in a church plant since early in our Orlando life. We have loved it from the beginning! About a year and a half ago, our Pastor approached Brett about becoming a deacon or elder. In this denomination, it is a rigorous process, and Brett was in a group that talked and studied for a year on different issues, and of course, the Bible. The process was completed in October with a written and oral exam, to which Brett passed and is now a deacon at our church. I am so proud of him for undergoing such a process, and letting God use him to serve our church in this way!

This service was held in early December and was such a special time. Our church was recognized as an official church. We are grateful to have been part of it since almost the beginning! It's small, so it's a lot of work to be involved, but this congregation has truly become the family that we don't have down here. We love, love, love it here!

Above are pastors from other churches praying for our new elders and deacons. Our pastor is in the red tie (with hair) touching Brett's shoulder. Don't you love Brett's face in that picture? hilarious!

Brett, I am so proud of you for walking humbly with our God!

My New Look...

Hey people! How goes it? just a quick update here, to let you know I got my hair cut a couple of weeks ago. Earth-shaking, isn't it?? It's haircut # 4 in 7 months! My rapid hair growth along with my long eyelashes will cause much jealousy from the female quotient over the years.. or so Mommy tells me! Maybe she is talking about herself?? Anyway, here's before and after shots!

Beware! Daddy has been uploading like a maniac...the blog will have many a new post coming very soon! Good night all!

Love,

Harrison

Sweet Me

Well, I've discovered that nothing gets done on this blog if I don't intervene. That's right guys, it's me, Harrison, your favorite Dooley signing in for today.

It is truly a crying shame that Mom has still not posted pics of my Halloween outfit. Some of you may remember that I was a candy corn. But, what you don't know is that I was an oversized candy corn...roughly about a 3 or 4 year old toddler corn. So, the outfit was a little big, but Mom and Dad thought I was still cute and possibly even edible. I didn't love putting the top on my head, but they forced me to sometimes. I'm sure that won't be the only thing they will force me to do. I've already received word from my older friends that parents are big on manners, cutesy outfits and cleaning your room. I'm in for it!

The night before Halloween, I went to a fun festival in my neighborhood. And on Halloween night, I went over to Grace's house. She was a ladybug, and quite a cute one at that.

I have a killer pout, as evidenced in the above and below pictures.

I love riding in my stroller!

That's all for now! I'll be back soon with more stories.

Harrison

"Yes"

That is what I said 6 years ago today when Brett asked me to marry him!

Time flies when you're having fun, and this morning as we were walking to Starbucks, we both agreed that marriage has gotten better and better with time. There have been lots of not-so-fun days, but even those are better with Brett!

6 years ago today I woke up in Thailand anticipating a day-long date with Brett. He had told me to be ready at 8 am. Well, there was only one problem. He had gotten very sick the night before. Date cancelled, right? Wrong. At 8 am, Brett was knocking at the door of my room asking if I was ready. I was still in bed. I told him we shouldn't go because he was so sick. Can you imagine what he was thinking? He then told our friend, "Leslie, I HAVE to take Lauren on this date today." She nodded, understanding that this could be THE day even though Brett was staying tight-lipped on the subject. She then came in to tell me to get ready to which I replied, "do you think I need to take a shower?" Can you tell I had no clue?

After convincing Brett, he agreed to go to the hospital. He had arranged a driver for us and we went first to the doctor. Everything was fine, but I never dreamed that going to the hospital would be part of my engagement story! We then drove probably about 3 hours to this beautiful national park. We went hiking and stopped to sit overlooking a waterfall. Brett then told me he had something for me. He pulled out a scrapbook of our relationship....old emails, pictures and lots of memories. And let me just say that Brett is not an artist, so I could tell the whole book was a labor of love. He went through each page with me and we laughed a lot. At the end there were lists of things he loved about me, verses that reminded him of me and answered prayers in our relationship. The last page said "I love you", and then he told me he loved me for the very first time. He then said a few more sweet things and asked me to marry him and I said "yes"! Then we went swimming in the waterfall...I held my left hand over the water the entire time scared to lose my new favorite piece of jewelry, (oh, and did I mention we had a picnic?) On the ride home we prayed together for the first time. It was one of the best days ever! Life has sure been an adventure since then!

I have only hard copies of pictures from that day, but here's a somewhat recent shot. Cheers!

2010

Happy New Year! I cannot believe it's 2010...what?? So fun to start fresh!

Brett, Harrison and I had a wonderful Christmas....oh, it was sooo fun....there are pictures to come, so that will have to be another post! We ran ourselves across Atlanta, which is always so fun, but extremely exhausting. We were able to spend one night with dear friends in Auburn as well, which was a blast. Video to come on that one too!

But, I wanted to post in light of the New Year because Brett and I like to "name" our years. We started this little tradition at the onset of 2007...we deemed that one as "the year of fun", and boy, was it fun! some of that fun even spilled over into 2008, that's just how much we lived it up! We thought and hoped that a baby would come so we wanted to do as many fun things as possible just in case. Well, we were right, and little Harrison coming along definitely made those times and that year even more fun and sweet.

2008 was the year of change...and, let's just say we were spot on with that one as well! We knew Harrison's May arrival would bring lots of change and unknown, but we had no idea how much life would change that year. 2008 was one of the hardest years of my life. It brought with it death, dishonesty, tragedy, sickness, and pain. Some things I cannot say on this public blog to protect the privacy of our loved ones, but it seemed at times impossible to get through. We began to question God about what was next instead of trusting Him. And all the while, we had the joy of our newborn boy. It was confusing to walk those roads of joy and pain at once, but I know God gave me Harrison to help ease the pain.

Once again, some of that change filtered it's way into 2009...I realized that we didn't name 2009, but as I look back, I think we would name it the year of hope. All that I mentioned before left us hoping for redemption and we saw that. We saw relationships restored that we prayed hard for and we saw some fall apart, but we hoped and hoped. It was a much better year than the previous and God taught me personally how to trust Him again. And He made some big decisions for us this year which leads me to 2010....

This will be our year of Faith and Trust. I really want to live every day of every year like this, but I guess this would be the theme as we look forward to what this year holds....a global move back to East Asia! What?? I kid you not! Some of you know many details, and I won't go into it! The short of it is we were approached in January and challenged to consider coming back....it took a long time for us to pray about it and work through a lot of things (including resistance, uncertainty, fear, etc..) but we are going! Probably in August, with a commitment of at least 2 years. I am thrilled and scared all at the same time, hence this year being about faith and trust.

So, there are no resolutions here, although I've tried to make some. I'd love to lose these last 5 pregnancy pounds, keep a cleaner house, seek to understand Brett more often, be disciplined in oh so many things, have FUN in all that I do, and the list goes on of things I want to do and things I hope for....I'll let you know if I keep up with any of them in the midst of getting ready for this big move. We shall see!

What are your resolutions???

What's a post without pictures? Happy New Year!!! Auld Lang Syne!

Smiles

Don't Hate Me....

Because my child did surprisingly well visiting Santa Claus! We did this about a month ago, and I have been so bad at posting pics! Last year Harrison was a 6 month old blob when he visited this very same Santa....and the people in line said, " just wait until next year, he'll hate him!"

Then, as we approached Santa time this year, again, friends warned me, "he will cry and cry and scream and scream." We were first in line (score!) and he was a little hesitant to get into Santa's lap, but he smiled and even let Santa kiss him on the cheek! They even snuggled!

Of course, the professional picture we got done is much better than these snapshots where he just looks confused! But, it was such a fun, sweet experience! I'm sure the tears will come later....I secretly want a crying shot because his crying face is just too cute!