Thank you!

Ladies, thank you so much for all of the encouragement and support you gave me on my last post! It was so comforting to know that I'm not the only one going through a dry spot or who has gone through a dry spot in their walk. In the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't the only one, but it helps to hear it!

God is truly working my life. I've been able to meet with him almost every day this week! Praise Him! Also, I've notice He's helped me at my job. I have a job that can be extremely emotionally tiring and frustrating. He's helped me to have a calmness at work and also has helped me to "leave work at work"! How awesome!


I also wanted to share with you about a concert that my husband and I recently put on. Over a year ago, my husband and I created an electronic-style worship CD.I wrote a post about it that you can read, here. Some of the songs were remixes of contemporary worship songs. The others, were ones that we wrote together. My husband does the amazing work with all the instrumentals and some vocals and I do the main vocals. Since we got married last October, we haven't been able to play much. This past summer, we played at a youth event and at the end of October, we played a concert at our church with another band.

I've got to say, Mackenzie and I work ourselves up for every event! We do a lot of practicing before the event, but we are always nervous! Once the show is over, we have so much energy and want to do it again! Its funny how things work that way. We truly enjoy playing music together. Especially music that praises God. Its just hard, in our busy schedules, to find time to play!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our concert that Sharon took.

If you would like to hear snippets of our music, we're on itunes. Our band is called Voice to Spirit (the idea behind this is our "voices" are singing praises to God)and our CD title is "Songs for a Broken City."

Here we are before the concert

Mackenzie's Grandpa Leonard, myself, Mackenzie, and Mackenzie's brother Hayden.

Grandpa Leonard, myself, Sharon, Mackenzie!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Memorial Day Memories

I hope you all had a relaxing Memorial Day weekend! Ours was fairly busy but we had some time to relax when we joined Mackenzie's parents and brothers for camping Sunday night to Monday.

We left after we did worship at church...here we are excited to get to the campsite. One of the most amazing things about Oregon is that camping is a short drive away and you have many options to choose from. We drove about an hour or so to our campground.

When we arrived, Mackenzie's grandparents Jim and Alice were at the campsite for the day. Alice and Sharon were in the camper, Jim and Eric were out fishing and the other guys were just having a good time relaxing or carving things out of wood.

It was so nice to just take time to sit by the campfire and catch up.

Even Bailey (Eric and Sharon's dog) came along for the fun. Grayson set up this really neat dog run from one tree to another, so she wasn't just stuck in one spot. I think she really enjoyed being able to move around more.

Sharon and Eric...they looked so sweet holding hands that I wanted to capture the moment...however when asked to hold hands again, Eric felt like having a bit of fun! hmm I wonder where my husband gets his comedian-style from?

Eric later took Alice, Sharon, and I around the lake for a short ride.

Here's Jim and Mackenzie watching us off. My husband cracks me up! He makes me laugh just about every day. It's so fun!

The weather was so ideal for camping. It was so beautiful. Sunny, warm, and not very much wind. We went to this same location about 2 years ago and the weather was much colder.

Here's Sharon enjoying the boat ride.

I love this man!

Grayson and Grandma Alice.

Hayden caring some wet pine. He carved a neat totem pole. I wish I got a picture of it!

Sharon and I...I was having a little too much fun. I wish the trip went longer!

Grayson working with the fire and Hayden carving his totem pole.

Grayson and Mackenzie having a great time together.

Here is our cozy little sleeping arrangement. Since we were only spending one night at the campsite, we decided to put the seats down in the back of Mackenzie's 4Runner, lay down a cozy mattress pad and spend the night in there! It actually wasn't too bad! Mackenzie was a little cramped due to his height but we both felt that it was pretty comfortable all in all.

Well, there you have it! A short but fun camping trip! I can't wait to go on more this summer. We plan to go on a 3 day long river float with Mackenzie's family this summer as well. I just love all this time we get to be outside and enjoy God's beautiful pictures that He paints for us!

Have a blessed day!

Late Easter Celebration

Last Sunday, Mackenzie and I went over to his aunt and uncle's (Sharon's side) to celebrate Easter. They asked to celebrate a week late due to the fact that a boy their daughter Whitney is seeing/courting, was in town for a visit. They wanted us all to meet him. He was such a sweet guy and seemed perfect for Whitney.

We really enjoy spending time with Mackenzie's Mom's side of the family. They are such wonderful, caring, God-loving people. We've been really blessed by all of them and I've had such a great time getting to know them all better.

Here is some of the group (mainly the kids) getting ready to go on the Easter egg hunt. It was fun hiding the eggs in unsuspecting places!

Filling their plates with delicious food!

Later we took a walk down to a near by, public, football field to watch some of the guys play.

My husband decided to ride a bike next to us while we were walking. He started doing a bunch of funny tricks.

He makes me laugh!
This is a quality that I really love about him and I know that he will always keep me laughing.

The three sisters, Sharon, Kathi, and Kelli.

We saw these 3 VW Bugs lined up on our way down and I just had to take a picture. I love how vintage and rusty looking they are. It's my husbands dream to fix one up someday.

Do you remeber the bike picture from my post on Monday? This was the day I rode with him. He told me he would give me a ride on his handle bars. I was a little apprehensive at first but had fun once I got on! I'd never actually ridden on handle bars before!

And finally, as I was talking with Sharon, Kathi, and Mackenzie, I noticed our shadows and though it would make a neat picture!

Have a blessed day!

Voice to Spirit

Hi all! Can I just say that the weather has been beautiful here? I absolutely love the sun, being from Southern California. However, where I live in Oregon now, we don't get too much of it. So, I like to take advantage of it when it is here!

Yesterday afternoon I went for a nice walk and decided to bring my camera along with me. Here are some of the pictures I took. Unfortunately, I didn't plan right and my camera battery died right in the middle of my walk.

I loved how the sun was shining through this tree.

In other news, the reason for the title of this post...many of you have asked about the cd that my husband and I put together. It's been almost a year now since we released it. Our group is called Voice to Spirit and the title of the cd is "Songs for a Broken City". It is a Christian Electronic-Style Worship CD. We covered/remixed 6 contemporary worship songs and wrote 9 of our own. 2 of the ones we wrote are co-written by both Mackenzie and myself. The rest are Mackenzie's own work, a few of them are instrumental.

We held a release party with about 30 of our friends and family members last June. Our intentions have been to do more events but due to our recent marriage and wedding last October keeping us really busy, we weren't able to schedule any concerts. Our hope is to travel to churches and youth groups to share our music. We'd also like to create a new cd in the future. Music has always been a passion of both Mackenzie and mine. We're fortunate enough to play in the worship team at our church.

Anyway, my loving husband gave me the code to paste the link to preview our music on Itunes. You may have to download itunes if you don't already have it on your computer. Once you get to our page, you can double-click on the song title and listen to a sample of our music. I'm sorry it's not the whole songs, but at least you can get a preview! I hope you are blessed! Here's the link:

Songs for a Broken City Voice To Spirit Genre: Electronic Worship (P) 2008 S.I. Productions

I'm sorry the link and spacing are so big! My husband is working on making it smaller but for now, this will do! Once it is smaller, I will place a link in my sidebar.

Have a blessed day!

Six Months!!

This past Saturday, Mackenzie and I celebrated our
6 month anniversary! Yay!

We decided to celebrate by going out to a nice dinner, to one of our favorite restaurants and seeing a movie.

It has been so gorgeous here lately and we really wanted to sit outside at the restaurant. However, the wait for outside seating was really long and we wanted to be able to get to our movie on time. We did however have a window seat that looked right out on the river. So beautiful.


I'm sorry this picture of us is so blurry! It's the only one I have of us at the restaurant. We asked the waiter to take it and he quickly walked away...oh well! Can you tell that there is a beautiful view in the background?

Have a wonderful Monday and enjoy the sunny weather, if you have it!

Family Time

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior!

We had a busy, but wonderful weekend!

Saturday started off with a 3 hour long worship practice for Sunday's services. Then Sharon, came and visited our place to see what new things we've done and added to it. Later, Sharon and I made a quick stop to the nearest thrift shops to try and find some treasures. That evening, I prepared 3 appetizers and rolls for Sunday. I'll share those appetizers later this week.

Sunday, we led worship for both services at church and then drove about an hour to Mackenzie's Aunt and Uncle's. We spent it with his Dad's side this year. I do miss my family as I haven't seen them since the wedding but, because they live in California and North Dakota, it's not as easy to just pop on over and spend time with them. We spend a lot of time on the phone. :) But, I am so excited because we'll be going to North Dakota this summer to see my mom and California for Christmas to see my Dad and Sister!

Here are some pictures of our time with Mackenzie's family.

Here's Sharon and I at the start of the party. Isn't her new blouse so cute? I think blue and green look so good on her!

Mackenzie's Grandma Alice and cousin Monique.

Some of the guys catching up.

The hosts, Stacey and Jim! They were so nice to open their home to us!

(Sorry the picture is so dark!)

And here we are!

I have a few questions for you all out there, what did you do for Easter and is your family near or far?