how could it be any better than this? : brian's birthday, new car and ballet

brian turned 31 last monday. our big splurge was a new car!!! we traded in our trusty little honda cr-v and got a 2005 ford expedition. i will take a picture of it soon and post it, but it is so pretty... it's blue with gold trim. we really love it. it's so much roomier than the cr-v and although it is a gas guzzler, we feel like it's just right for us right now. it also motivated us to clean out the garage so we can actually park it in there at night. it was kinda a spontaneous decision, but we knew the cr-v was too small for 3 carseats and we knew within the next few weeks a lot of hurricane damaged cars would probably be showing up on used car lots, so we prayed about it and decided to go see if we could find a deal that was in our price range. God blessed us and we found something even better than we ever expected we would be able to afford. we are so thankful and excited about it.

anyway enough about the car. we also started back to school on tuesday. thankfully the kids were ready to be back and got right back into the routine. our FCA meeting thursday was awesome... the officers knew of a college-age worship band that they invited to come play for our meeting. they were so awesome! we had about 70 kids come out and worship God together that morning. our FCA group also sponsored "see you at the pole" on wednesday and we all gathered around our school's flagpole, sang worship songs and prayed. i cannot express how humbling it is to see these high school kids who are so passionate about God, they don't care what their peers think about them. they just love the Lord. i am so humbled and excited to be "leading" this group this year.

one more thing about school... our varsity football players started a new tradition this year where they choose their favorite teacher to wear their football jersey all day on friday, then the teacher turns it in at the end of the day for the football player to wear to the game that night. well, yesterday, one of my football players picked me! i must admit it was really fun to wear his football jersey all day friday (half-day for me). and we won the game last night! yeah!

lastly, avery started her first ballet/tap class this morning at the Y. she was so nervous before we left, she even cried and said she didn't want to go, even though she's been dancing around in her tap shoes for the past month waiting for class to start. anyway, i just prayed that she would be at peace and have fun. when we walked up to the door, one of her friends from mother's day out is in her ballet/tap class!!! avery was completely at peace once she saw celeste, and she had a blast. she came home tip-toeing, curtsy-ing and doing the chicken dance for us. and she looked so stinkin' cute in her little leotard!

avery the ballerina (in her tap shoes)