The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of busyness!

• Going to our friend Megan's lakehouse - we enjoyed a weekend of boating, hiking, jumping off cliffs (overcoming my fear of heights!), tubing, Fruit Ninja, cute Mastiff, good food, music by bonfire, etc. It was an extremely needed weekend away!  

• Interview for the position that opened up at my school - I am super excited for this next year at school. I will be moving down to the primary SCB class at my school (teaching K/1 students with disabilities) and we interviewed for the intermediate position (2/4 grades). I am super excited for the school year and am thinking it's going to be a great one!
• Birthday - I turned 25 this year! We went to Splash Down water park in Manassas, VA and enjoyed dinner out at Mongolian BBQ with friends. Rob spoiled me with gifts, including a "rememories jar" and a beautiful necklace! I am grateful for the people in my life that have shown me such love. :) 

Fun water slide!

• Dark Knight Rises - Despite the tragedy on opening night, Christopher Nolan completed the Batman series with a bang! It was a GREAT movie. The cast, themes running throughout the movie, acting... I am excited for it to come out on DVD so I can watch with subtitles and really pick out the details. 
• Hanging out by the Choptank River with church friends - LOTS of crabbing. Even though I don't eat crabs, there is something about being able to catch your own food. :) 
• Olympics! - Swimming, diving, gymnastics, beach volleyball are some of my favorite events to watch. What are yours? 

I am excited to be home, even though the past two weeks have been full of adventures!

My sin had left a crimson stain.

It has been a long week! Babysitting for a toddler and a baby is a tiring job!

This week: I managed to:

• Finish putting together pictures for our wedding scrapbook (now just have finish it by writing quotes, scriptures, etc)
• Gather materials for my next big craft project (will post when I am done!)
• Make a 3 layer vanilla cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting

YUM.

• Earn 50 cents off gas per gallon (!)
• Gather neat knobs from World Market to funky-fy our dresser :) 

I am going through the book of Mark with a friend; yesterday, we read through the story in Mark 1, where a leper goes to Jesus, saying, "If you are willing, make me clean." Jesus looks on him with compassion, says that He is willing and cleanses him. The man goes off, with what I interpret as uncontainable joy, and tells of his renewal, despite being told not to. I have read that story multiple times, but this time, it really struck a cord in my heart. Several things (I am in a bullet point mood):

• It made me think about the sheer fact that Jesus cares for and loves those who are outcasts from society - lepers were so revolting to people in that culture that no one would touch them because of the sores on their skin; they were literally "unclean" people. This makes my heart happy, thinking of many different populations in this world, including the homeless/hungry and people with disabilities - subgroups in our society that people oftentimes casts aside/neglect/make fun of ("hobo," "bum," "lazy," the r-word that I cannot even bear to type out - that's a whole other post). 
• I identify with this leper. Figuratively, I am filthy, stained by my sin and brokenness. I want to be made clean, to be made pure and holy, beautiful. I can see myself in this leper's shoes, coming to Jesus, asking him to make me clean, to turn my life around. Jesus looks past social/religious bounds, touches the man who probably hasn't been touched in years, and makes him clean. What?! Just like that?? Amazing... THEN: 

 This morning, during our church service, we sang, "Jesus Paid It All." Funny coincidence: 

Lord, now indeed I find, Thine power and Thine alone,can change the leper's spotsand melt the heart of stone.Jesus paid it all,all to Him I owe,My sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

It brought me to tears. I am so grateful for the sacrifice Jesus paid to make my unclean soul "white as snow," holy and pure. I am made new because of Him.

source  

Listening to: Summer Skin, Deathcab for Cutie

Big storms!

This week has flown by! It's been super busy, between babysitting, running errands, church events, small group, paperwork at school - I was excited for a relaxing weekend, but God had other plans. On Friday, while Rob and I were out with some friends watching Moonrise Kingdom, there was a BIG storm that hit - we didn't realize this, as we were in the theater until the lights and screen cut out! It was a little funny, because it was during a scene where there was a big storm. But anyway, it caused quite a bit of damage - a LOT of people lost their power and lots of trees and lines down.

Fallen tree - it was HUGE!

Luckily, we still had power (for a little bit - we ended up losing power too, but only for a little bit) so we housed Rob's grandma, mom and dad and our friends Corina and Jake for the day/part of the day. :) It's kind of fun not having our technologies whenever we want and just being able to interact and talk without the distractions.

Rob and I are reading through 1 John together; we did our second study today. It was pretty convicting - in chapter 2, it goes through the idea of being a liar if we do not do what God commands (v. 4). Which is pretty heavy - as I read through the study and discussed it with Rob, I thought about the ways that I am a "liar," in the ways that I ignore God's commands - gossiping, judging others, not loving my brothers/sisters. The ways that we live can be a testimony to the commitment to we have made to Jesus and to our relationship; in some ways, I think the world may look at me and think I am a "liar" because I so often fall short. Thankfully, when we do fall short (which is often), Jesus speaks on our behalf, in our defense (v. 2). There is an assurance there. Hopefully, the good Lord continues to do his work in me. :)

School is out for summer! Wahoo! It has been my first real week off; it has been really nice to relax, sleep in, run errands, and CLEAN. I have felt like quite the housewife lately; some of our furniture has collected such dust! :-O I thought I would be bored this summer, but it's really been nice to have so much time on my hands!

This summer, I plan on (hopefully) babysitting regularly, running, hanging out with friends, crafting, finishing starting our wedding scrapbook, making yummy Pinterest recipes, like these bean tacos pictured below, with fresh tomato salsa, mango salsa, seasoned corn and avocado. :)

The hubby and I plan on going on a lot of day trips, as we aren't able to go on an extended vacation. Kings Dominion, Shenendoah, Bethany Beach - any other fun day trips we can take nearby the metro DC area?

Rob's sister Christie got married last Saturday; it was a beautiful wedding at Turf Valley in Ellicott City, MD. Rob and I had a blast! This was the first wedding we've been to since ours. It really put me in a sentimental mood and I thought a lot about our wedding as their wedding day came. 

Black H&M Dress ($10!), black peep toe Gap flats
Turquoise chunky necklace

My love and I; the most handsome groomsman there was!

I cut my hair, so it is much shorter than that. Pictures to be posted soon! 

My plans for this week: Wedding scrapbook. 

Sick is no fun...

Welp - I was sick all of last week. I went into Sunday night with the chills, body aches and a headache and came out of the ER Monday morning at 3 am with an infection. :( Throughout the week, I still had the case of the chills, fevers, headaches and body aches - general weakness. I went to the doctor's again on Tuesday and found out I had a sinus infection as well!
Rob was a huge help - reminding me to take my meds, drink lots of water, bringing things to me (as I was subjected to the couch), making me food (when I would eat). What a great hubby!

Today, we went down to DC to hand out some lunches to our homeless friends downtown. Rob gave an impromptu Chesapeake Bay lesson to some guys interested in oysters and I had a chat with a good old friend about heaven. It was a good day. :) I am glad to finally be well enough to get out of the apartment.

Listening to: O's Game

I am grateful

I am grateful. For sunshine. For car rides with my husband with windows down, listening to him sing along to music playing loud. For Jesus Christ pouring down his blessings and love. For my students. For 21 days of school left. For mothers. For my Heavenly Father. For game nights with good friends. For lazy Saturdays.

 Most of all, I am grateful for this video today and what it has taught me. Thank you for showing me the reality of this quote: "But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God has designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be not an obstacle to success but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain." -John Piper

 With love, Carol

I want to be more intentional about blogging. I have a lot to share! And I've been inspired by all of these teacher blogs and food blogs that I have come across on Pinterest.

Since I last posted, I married my best friend. Everyone always asks us how married life is now. Marriage definitely has its ups and downs, but I am continuing to learn more about him, about myself and about God through the process. We are coming up on 6 months of marriage - I can't believe so much time has passed.



I have a student who is kind of a blabber mouth. She is my only completely verbal student and does she make up for the other by her chattiness! The other day, I told her about the party we were having for one of our staff; she got really excited but I told her not to even talk to this staff person because the last time my student found out about a birthday party, she spilled the beans and told the birthday girl. This time she took it seriously - she walked through the staff member's room; the staff member said, "Hi! How are you?" to my student and she did not answer her question. I asked her, "B, Miss Lissy asked you a question." She said, "Mrs. Walker, you told me not to talk to her."

I know I am going to seem lame for posting about this, but I will risk judgement. I have been an avid One Tree Hill fan since high school when it came out. It is coming close to the end of its series! Crazy. One of the storylines that has always saddened me is Dan Scott's failed relationship with his son, Nathan, and his family. Dan was a really bad dad - he had an illegitimate son with his high school sweetheart Karen close to the same time he impregnated his college girlfriend, Deb; he never gave this illegitimate son the time of day and did not even want to associate himself with him, while pressuring his son Nathan to the brink of taking steroids to boost his basketball performance; he killed his own brother and lied about it; this is only a few of the nasty things that characterized Dan's life. For almost the entire show, Nathan and friends really HATED Dan for all that he did and all that he was. Throughout this, I felt really bad for Dan. A lot of the things Dan did sprouted from sin and hardness in his own heart, but I knew that, at least in his relationship with Nathan, he did a lot of things out of love; maybe not in the best and most loving way, but he has so much love for Nate.
A couple of shows ago, Dan risked his life for Nathan, taking the bullet for him trying to save Nathan from being kidnapped (okay, so the show gets kind of crazy sometimes). I was so happy that the writers decided to take the show this way; despite the awful things that Dan Scott did and was, he unselfishly sacrificed himself for his son, while he knew good and well that Nathan HATED him (not the same complete picture of the verse, but reminds me of Romans 5:8). The show did a good job of showing the family coming alongside Dan for his last couple of hours and loving him, despite everything that he had done - he showed that he truly repented and how sorry he was for the things that he had done. I thought it was a really beautiful picture of redemption of a fallen man and reconciliation of broken relationships.

Listening to: Gamble Everything For Love - Ben Lee