Quality Time

This weekend we have shared a lot of quality time together and with friends. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures to document, so words will have to do.  Friday night we ended up going on a date since we felt we had not really connected all week.  We tried a new restaurant called The Elephant Bar and we both really liked it.  After dinner we stopped by Fiorella's Jack Stack to pick up some bread pudding to go.  We absolutely love that stuff!  We came home and started a fire in the back yard so we could burn our Christmas tree.  Can you believe we've kept it that long?  It's just been sitting on the side of our house for nearly 8 months.  But it was fun, nonetheless!  It was a nice night to sit around talking and relaxing just the two of us.

Saturday we got a lot done!  I had teacher training at the church in the morning and Jay mowed the yard.  Then we went to the grocery store and cleaned house before our dinner guests arrived.  We had Adam and Kate Jones over for dinner and dessert so they could share with us about their ministry they are getting ready to start in St. Louis.  It was great to get to know them better and hear their motivation for sharing Christ with college students.  We had a great evening together talking about college, marriage, church, sharing stories and pictures, too.

Today was a great morning at church.  Pastor Dave shared on "The True Source of Comfort" coming from the book of Job.  It was a great sermon and good reminder of where our hope comes from.  We took a nap today and have been resting all afternoon, soaking up our time together before the fall gets too busy!  Tonight we have community group and are looking forward to some more quality time with dear friends.

Jay will start a new rotation on Thursday (internal medicine at the VA Hospital in Leavenworth, KS) and then we head to Norman for the long weekend on Friday!  Hope your week starts off great!

Family Fun at Chick-Fil-A

Last night Jay and I went to a free concert we heard about on Calvary 88.5 at the Chick-Fil-A by my work.  Since we hardly did anything this weekend, we thought it'd be fun to go!  We invited several couples but none of them could go so we just went the two of us!  I headed over right after work to snatch us some good seats in front of Aaron Shust!  He's a pretty well-recognized Christian artist and he was promoting his new CD coming out today!  We ate some yummy chicken and had a great time - the weather was nice, too!  A fun Monday night, for sure!

Our seats!

Chicken sandwiches are yummy!

So is Dr. Pepper!

On the guitar....

...and piano!

Prayer week at CC is going really good so far.  Tomorrow is the 24-hour prayer chain.  You can join in and pray for your city, too!  :)

Prayer Warriors

Last night kicked off Covenant Chapel's Third Annual Week of Prayer.  It's amazing we've been involved at CC for 3 years but each year we keep getting plugged in more and more, getting to know more people and loving it!  We are so thankful for such a stellar and God-loving community surrounding us.  Prayer week is always something we look forward to at CC.  We started off last night with an extended time of praise and worship (which I was honored to help lead) and then ended with a panel of some leaders from our partner organizations.  They shared some our their burdens for our city and we prayed over them and their needs.  This week we have prayer breakfasts each morning where we study the Bible and pray together.  Then on Friday we have a half night of prayer lead by Pastor Dave and the prayer team.  It is challenging and exciting to pray over the needs of our city and we hope and pray that the Holy Spirit shows ups in mighty ways not only this week but into the future!

Back To The Books

Book club kicked off for the fall season this Thursday with movie night!  The Help came to the big screen last week and it has definitely been a blockbuster favorite from fans and critics alike.  We read The Help back in March and had a great discussion so I knew it would be fun to start off book club going to see The Help.  We had a great turn-out and the movie was very good.  It was well casted, well acted, emotional, powerful and overall just a darn good movie.  It was interesting to have read the book and then to see the words on those pages acted out.  It almost made it seem more painful to watch than to read.  After the movie, we stood around in the hallway talking about how it made us feel.  We compared some of the issues of the Civil Rights movement to the issues we deal with today and realized how not very different they are.  It was very thought-provoking and we all enjoyed seeing it.

Here's the group from March....

And here's the group from August: Me, Jenny, Ashley, Shawna, Katherine, Shea and Maggie

Thanks for coming, girls!

After the movie I shared with everyone my memory of my grandmother's help, Pearl.  Here she is with my mom, who was much younger during the movement than Skeeter or Hilly but nonetheless remembers her help, too.  I still remember Pearl being around the house when we would go visit my Grandmother in Texas.  She is a wonderfully kind woman and my mom and grandmother still have a great relationship with her.  This picture was taken not even a year ago.  :)

Jillian Goes to School & Jude is 3 (weeks!)

This morning I got two special texts from my sisters-in-law with some fun pictures attached!  The first was from Akina: today is Jillian's first day of kindergarten!  She is getting so big and we can hardly believe she is already in kindergarten.  We are so proud of her!  Here are some pictures before the big day:

She's so ready!

Good luck kisses from Mommy and Daddy!  Love these - SO SWEET!

The second text was from Catherine: Baby Jude is 3 weeks old today.  He is looking very alert and focused in this picture.  It's hard to believe it's already been three weeks.  The time seems to fly by.  Before we know it, it will be Jude in those kindergarten pictures above!  What a big day for the Thorpe family!  

"Hi, everybody!"  :)



Random Weekend (but oh so fun!)

Jay and I have had a great weekend with friends and family!  It's been the first weekend in about a month when we didn't have anything planned or weren't out of town, so it was nice to hang in KC.  Friday night after we both got home from work we met up with my sister Leslie for dinner and a movie on the plaza.  We ate a California Pizza Kitchen (it was our first time) and were very pleased - we enjoyed it very much! After pizza we headed over to the theater to see Final Destination 5 (our guilty pleasure, ha ha!).  We had fun hanging out all together and she ended up spending the night (SLEEPOVER!)  Here were being scared on the couch after the movie:

My friend Jessica was in town this weekend for a friend's wedding so we were able to spend some time together on Saturday.  We met Rachel for breakfast at Einstein Bros and really had a wonderful time over yummy bagels and iced coffee!  Here is a picture of us from college:

We went to a few boutiques after breakfast and then Jess sat with me while I got my nails done!  Jay met us for lunch at Panera on Town Center and then we headed home so Jess could get ready for the wedding and we could clean and go grocery shopping.  It was wonderful to get that done on Saturday so that we had all day today to relax!  Saturday night we had our great friends Matt and Shea Looloian over for dinner and dessert.  After dinner we sat outside by the fire roasting marshmallows for smores and talking well into the night.  We are blessed with such great friends in KC.  

Matt and Jay made a great fire!

Sisters?  So many people think so! :) Love her so much

Dash really really wanted a smore!

Great night with great company

This week is another normal week for the both of us.  We have our YAMs potluck tonight and some fun things planned for later this week (book club resumes with MOVIE NIGHT)!  Happy Sunday!

YAMs Summer Retreat

This weekend was our annual summer retreat to Lake Wabaunsee with the YAMs church group.  This is our third year to go and we've always had a great time.  We left Friday night after work with the "late" group to meet up with everyone who was able to leave Friday morning.  We played Cranium with the whole group until bedtime and it was so fun!  My team won, of course! :)  Saturday we woke up to the smell of pancakes, all ate breakfast together and then headed out to the water!  Lake Wabaunsee is very small but we got to ride the jet ski and hang out in the water and on the dock just chatting and relaxing.  As always, we had a great time!

Shea and me (a little foggy but cute nonetheless)

Hanging out on the dock!

Matt and Jay cooking up some lunch!

Beautiful day at the lake

Jet ski riding!

Jay preparing to catch the football....

And nice catch!

Group pic!

New Nephew - Welcoming Baby Jude

Last week Catherine had her baby boy and we now have plural "nephews"!  Plus, there's someone to carry on the Thorpe name!  Way to go Wes and Catherine!  We're so excited to be proud aunt and uncle to another baby boy and we can't wait to meet him!

Big sister Alice - so cute!

Jude Wesley Thorpe

Proud parents