my old man...

dave celebrated his 31st birthday this past weekend...it was so much fun. we threw a party on friday night and it was a hit. saturday was his big day...we just hung out with friends, and then my parents took us to dave's all time favorite, stoney river :)

me with rachel ward and ashley eicher

aimee, dave, and idah...they are all rockstars :)

mel, aimee, me, presh, libby, and idah...all sweating our butts off

happy birthday, bo!

vbs...

rachel ward, aimee mwizerwa, and i put together a vacation bible school for the african refugee kids in town. most people dont know this, but nashville has one of the biggest refugee populations in the nation- we are very global. (besides the point, but nashville has the top US population of kurds...) anyway, we also have a huge group of africans- mostly from burundi, sudan, somalia, and rwanda. they are coming in every day. its crazy hearing them talk about where they've come from and how hard it is to acclimate into a completely different culture, education system, and way of life. can you even imagine?

aimee is...well, an angel to these people. she's from rwanda herself, and she works for african leadership ministering and serving the refugees. she helps them with everything they need- getting clothes, learning how to grocery shop, getting the kids in school, helping them learn english...you name it, she probably does it. and since she has so much on her plate, she enlisted rachel and me to help her plan vbs. its been going on this week...its been going well, but lets just say we have learned some good lessons for next year :)

believe it or not, we have had a lot of volunteers- some from local schools and also a church from pittsburg sent us some high schoolers. they've been great.

i turned my back for one minute and the next thing you know, these little punks had taken all 4 paint colors, squirted them onto the plate, and rubbed them around until it became army green...then painted their arms and started calling themselves frogs. i'd say that went well.

sweet dave has been the musical entertainment for the week...he has had some help along the way- thank you micah and wertzie! they've done great. we've resurrected "deep and wide", "this little light of mine", "i've got a river of life", and the crowd favorite, "father abraham"- when dave asked for requests this afternoon, one of the little boys shouted "jingle bells!" ...o yes we did.

ellie's run

last saturday was our long-awaited event, ellie's run for africa (affectionately known as ERFA for those of us who have been working on it for quite some time...) it was a great success! we raised thousands of dollars to put kids in school and we had a blast doing it. i must admit, i didnt actually "race" per se, but i did burn some quality calories cheering on the runners...i think they appreciated me :) i was overwhelmed with the number of people who came out- it was crazy! i also must give a little shout out to my ERFA boss, amber lehman. she freakin rocked it. she works her butt off all year for this event and she deserves a TON of credit. i am totally impressed by her willingness to give of her time, energy, and money- and im positively sure that ellie's run wouldnt raise half as much if it werent for her. it was a privilege to serve beside her (well, maybe a few yards behind her) and see all she does for this cause...and it made me even MORE proud to call her my friend!me, amber and allison bucchinani registering the runners. we felt it boosted our self-confidence to sit underneath that poster...

barrett, dave, micah, and matt lehman before the race...notice who is wearing numbers and who is not...

golf anyone?

brad took dave and me to the driving range to give us some pointers...brad is freakin unbelievable and we were...uhh...a little rusty, to say the least...

we're getting geared up...

im hoping brad's face wasnt a response to our performance...or maybe he had just realized the work he had cut out for him...

brad is a machine...no surprise there...

i'm just tryin...and now i have a little more motivation to practice- anyone wanna take up golf with me?

portland

im getting behind on posting...sorry...we'll have to play catch-up.

so, weekend before last, dave and i went to portland to spend some time with the young family. paul young is a friend of ours and he wrote the book The Shack. if you havent read it, im sure youve at least heard about it...either way, you should read it. paul is great and they have an amazing (and huge) family.

they just moved into a new house (picture above is the view from their backyard of mt. hood.) they had a big party last weekend celebrating 2 birthdays (lexi and matthew, the 2 youngest of 6 kids) and the new house. dave and matt wertz played a few songs, we ate, swam, played games, and hung out. we had a blast getting to know everyone. they welcomed us like part of the family...

dave has this new app on his phone where it takes 4 pictures back-to-back...we were playing bocce ball as the sun set, so you can see both :)

here we have most of the crew- abby and justin on the left, matthew, amy, tyler, me, then lexi, and nicco

amy and i rockin it in the hot tub...she was our hostess for the weekend, and a fanstastic one at that :)

this is us with paul before we took off back home-