New York, New York

It was a whirlwind of a weekend... lets just say i am in no rush to go back to the fast pace life of a new yorker... But we did have a wonderful time wandering the big city and seeing the sights. We screamed "tourist" by the way we walked around, map in tow and camera's draped around our necks taking pictures at every exciting corner. The main reason for our trip was so that Denis and Andrea could go to the Met to see the opera. Matt and I had no desire to PAY to sit through 3 hours of singing in another launguage. So Matt and i walked around Central Park and some of the sights near it while they enjoyed their opera.
Here is a list of some of the things we saw on our 2-day mini vacation
Empire State Building
Times Square
Library
Cathedrial (can't remember which one...)
Tiffany's
Rockefeller Center
Central Park
Bloomigdales
AFO Schwarts
Little Italy
Canal Street
Lincoln Center
Metropolitan Opera House
Julliard
Ground Zero
the inside of a cab :)
Broadway

I am sure i have missed a few...but you get the picture :)

Here are a few pictures of our trip...well actually..there is alot...

I......

I am: clumsy and at times forgetful...denis says i need medication because i forget things alot...good thing rachel gave me the gift of time management for our birthday!
I think: that The Office should be the only show on TV.
I know: who i am :)
I want: Rachel to move to Rochester! SO BADLY!!!!!!!!!!
I wish: there were more hours in the day
I hate: when I am in the "almost asleep" stage and I dream that I fall or trip and then my body reacts to it and I jolt awake...it makes me so mad.
I miss: dorm life. it may sound silly but i miss the unpredictability, the late night chats with my roommates and craziness that came with it all.
I fear: failure.
I feel: things deeply. Even the smallest of things i feel deep. right now i feel like this is a weakness of mine, but maybe someday i will learn to use it to make me stronger.
I hear: children out in the hallway
I smell: nothing...i am very stuffed up.
I crave: Mountain dew...on a daily basis. I think i am addicted, but admitting that is the first step, right?
I search: for the meaning in everything. sometimes that gets me into trouble because i am searching for things that aren't really there
I regret: never taking piano lessons
I love: my husband. with every fiber of my being
I ache: when i see someone eating alone. i just want to sit and talk with them.
I care: alot :)
I always: hit my snooze alarm. sometimes just once, other times i will hit it for an hour. no lie
I am not: what you would call a tall person
I believe: Jesus paid it all, so all to him i owe
I sing: everyday. every single day. it's part of my DNA
I cry: every time denis and i argue. He says it's an unfair advantage, he can't argue with a crying woman.
I fight: the urge to eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I write: as often as i can in my journal. It's one of my favorite things to do.
I win: whenever i play checkers with Rachel :)
I lose: whenever i play laser tag because i laugh every time i get tagged.
I never: exaggerate...ever...never ever :)
I confuse: people when my sister walks around our church 5 months pregnant. not happy times for me...
I listen: for God's voice
I can usually be found: at church :)
I need: to go and visit my parents SOON!
I am happy about: being a part of my godchildren's lives.
I hope: that someday i can be as great of a mom and mine is.

i would like to see Rachel and Amy fill this out :)

My Best Friends Shower

In just a few weeks, my best friend will join the married club! YEAH!!!! I am so excited for her and her big day. Kelly (a fellow bridesmaid) and I worked ALMOST through the night to throw a bridal shower for heather a few weeks back. (i can't seem to keep up with this blog these days...) It was a wonderful day, not to mention extreemly hot out. We had a great turn out of people. We played some of my favorite bridal games which included:
*20 questions (questions all about the bride) the funniest part of the whole game was when heather's mom got the question "What town did the bride grow up in" wrong. poor thing. she really took some heat for that.
*fun facts (a game where everyone writes a fun fact about themselves on a card and then heather has to figure out whose fact it is) She actually did really well.
*purse game (we had a list of 12 items, who ever had the most items in their purse won)
*bridal bingo
*keepsake cards- everyone recieved a card and envolope, on the outside of each envolope it said something like FIRST CHRISTMAS, or FIRST BABY, or ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY. there where a few other milestone events on them as well. Then you wrote a note on the card for them to open on that day. We put them all in a keepsake box for heather to read on those days. she better wait!!!

We laughed and ate and had a great time. Heather got alot of great gifts for her new home.

here are a few pictures.









I love you Heather! can't wait for the big day!!!!!!!!!

We are Family!

Our household has grown from 3 (for those of you who may not know, we have a good friend of ours from roberts who stays with us...she makes three) to 7 overnight. Our close friends Robbie and Leticia have moved here from Chigago (YEAH!!!!!!!!!) but don't have a place to stay until september. So they asked if they could stay with us until then ( this is why amy called me crazy in her latest blog!). We said yes of course. So last night at around 10:30 at night they arrived with two babies in tow (and one on the way, due in december). It was a crazy night trying to get everyone settled in. but it was so nice waking up to those little voices calling my name. They call me Titi Becca, titi is spanish for aunt. Tio is uncle, but when they say denis's name is sounds like "uh-oh ennis" so cute.... i am realizing that my house needs a bit more baby proofing and alot more space. but i can't really do much about the space thing right now! :) Denis and i gave them our master bedroom because they have to set the nursery up in it as well. Baby Robbie is sleeping in Daisy's room and then denis and i moved into the back spare room. It is a bit cramped, but it is nice to have a space that is just ours. I know that this is going to be a crazy summer, but i am excited to be a part of the kids lives. They are our god children and we only have been able to see them a few times in the past few years. I am sure there will be plenty of pictures and stories to come!

Finer Things

This past saturday was Denis's and i first Saturday together that we had off!! it was the strangest thing to have had the entire day to do whatever we wanted to do. We slept in and when we woke up, we spent a quite morning downstairs reading. It was something we really want to try and do more often. no tv...no music...no phone calls. just us snuggled up reading. Its the simple things in life i guess! That evening we met some of our closest friends for an evening of "finer things." for those of you who watch the office, you may know why we call ourselves finer things. We get together once a month to go out to a nice dinner or do something we normally wouldn't do on our own. Denis decided that this month we were going to paint pottery. he actually wanted to MAKE it, but we couldn't find anyplace that did that. So we settled with paiting. We had our own private room to paint a pottery piece of our choosing. Below are a few pictures of our eventful evening!!!


The girls creations:






The whole gang hard at work:



The guys creations:






The couples







Here is everyone with their crafts...meg is holding my plate...she likes to think it is hers. I humored her for this picture and held up hers :)



afterwards we headed to Philips European for desserts. Thanks for a great evening friends!!!

April Fools Day

Happy April Fools everyone. I spent the morning having my students say "look! a ...." (fill in the blank...they said everything from a purple elephant to hannah montana) I thought for sure that would be the extent of the "fools" today. boy was i wrong. I'm going to let you in on a little conversation i had with my buddy john over text today.

john: so, have you talked to Amy lately? Did she tell you anything?
me: i talked to her yesterday...but just about our plans for thursday...
john: oh... ok
john: well i guess if she didn't tell you, that i shouldn't. She'd kill me
me: what is it?!?
john: Becca... I can't tell you. She's been upset with me for telling you MUCH smaller news than this. I can't steal that from her- i just figured you'd know already.
me: i don't! when can i call her!?
john: she's working a 12...so she'll probably be busy all day. Just nevermind, forget I said anything.
john: ok...maybe I could tell you...but you'll still have to act really surprised and excited when she tells you...!!
me: FREAKIN TELL ME
john: ok...APRIL FOOLS


me: you are so cruel

what a rotten person he is. rotten to the core.

so what about you? do any of you have any good april fools jokes that were played on you or that you played on someone else? share your story!

Easter Weekend

We had a phenominal weekend at our church for Easter. We had our first services in our new building and it was incredible. We had 5 services in all: 1 Friday, 1 Saturday, and 3 on Sunday. Our new facility seats 1,200, in comparison to our previous that sat just over 400. It was a whirlwind of a week to prepare. the earliest night we were home was monday night at 10:30. But it was worth the sleepless nights and all the hard work. In attendance overall we had about 5300 people (that includes teens and children) and just over 500 first time decisions. Here are a few pictures that the D&C took.

Harmony

This little girl is the light of my life. It is hard to put into words just how much i love and adore this little person. This past weekend I was able to go home ( I drove home all by myself for the first time ever...I'm a big girl now!) and spend some much needed time with my family. On top of seeing my parents, Allison, Rachel and harmony, we had an incredible surprise! (well i knew ahead of time...but that's another story.) On Friday night, after we all had dinner and we were just sitting around "shootin the breeze," as my mom would call it, and then the next thing you know, in walks my Aunt Elsie and my Uncle Bob. I hadn't seen them in about 2 years! It was incredible to be able to add them to our weekend at home. On Saturday night, my Uncle Bob pulled out what we lovingly refer to as The Book O-Fun. It was a book of the top 100 Christian Songs. He went through one by one and had Rachel and I sing a little of each song. It was so funny. Rach and i are SOOO good, that all my Aunt needed to do was give us the Artist, and we guessed the title. we did really well for the first 25 or so, then the songs were a little out of our age range :) They headed out early Sunday morning, while rach and I stayed and went to church. I headed out after lunch and rach a few hours later. It was a wonderful weekend full of fun, laughs and diet foods....hehehe. The drive wasn't as bad as i had it made out to be in my head. I will definitely be doing it more often now that WE NO LONGER HAVE SIX SERVICES A WEEKEND! only 2 on sunday's now. i still can't believe it. we had our first service in our new building last night. i still have chills from it. it was amazing. I am so ready for our Easter services. God is so faithful...

Back to Harmony

Of course i brought my camera home this weekend and i took about 125 pictures of Harmony. Here are a few for now. More to come. Enjoy this sweet sweet face.

50 things about me

* i got this idea from Ashley. I haven't blogged in a while and don't really have alot to blog about, unless you want to know how my dreams are, cause all i do these days are work and sleep :) speaking of dreams...i did have a dream the other night that denis gave me a weave. (a hair weave) in my dream he braided my hair back and sewed in new hair...weird dream...

anyway. here are 50 things about me.

1. i have an identical twin sister ( bet NO ONE knew that!)
2. my two front teeth are fake. when i was 17, i did a face plant on pavement while riding my bike. My tire got caught in my friends tire that was riding in front of me. It was so embarrassing. I was lying in the middle of the road and my friend tim ran so fast up the street to drag me out of the road before i was run over. i even went to Darin lake the next day with smashed up front teeth...how did i ever recover...
3. i got my license when i was 26.
4. i have this thing about cruise control. denis keeps in on all the time JUST IN CASE he needs it. if i am not using it, it has to be off. there was one time when denis was driving and the cruise button was on, even though it wasn't set, so i reached over and turned it off...yeah...i will never do that again.
5. i am deathly afraid of tunnels. once i grabbed the wheel of the car while denis was driving in one because i thought we were too close to the wall. i swear tunnels are death traps. that is why i will never live in pittsburg. sorry rach.
6. if i am eating vanilla ice cream, i have to have chocolate syrup OR some kind of brownie or cookie or even pie to go with it. can't have it plain by itself.
7. my mom is also a twin. a fraternal twin. Her twins name is Elsie.
8. growing up, i was more afraid of my mom than i was my dad. my dad is a big softy.
9. i came in third place in an archery competition in 6th grade. it was against my entire class...including the boys. dad was proud.
10. for a senior prank, a group of us broke into our school and night and made a mess of the senior hallway. we had to run from the police... don't know if my mom ever knew that... hehehe SORRY MOM
11. kids at school used to call our car the bible-mobile cause we went to church so often. if they could see me now!
12. i used to LOVE horror movies. couldn't get enough of them. now they physically make me sick. i will never EVER EVER again watch Event Horizon. Scariest movie i have ever seen.
13. In Mexico, while we were on our cruise, i got in the car alone with a mexican taxi driver to go to the beach. looking back...not such a smart move.
14. i love to journal. i try to do it every night. i feel like it is somehow leaving a mark on the world. like it's my legacy. when i write i think "maybe my great great grand kids will read this and learn from my mistakes and struggles" it is such a cool thing.
15. when i go up and down steps, i need to count them. always.
16. i fall alot. especially in the winter. like once a day.
17. i have a shower routine. there is a specific order i need to go in when i shower. i have tried to break myself of it, and i can't. same with drying off. i need to go in a certain order...am i sharing too much here...i kinda feel like i am over sharing.
18. i over use "..." in emails, text and even my blogs. i don't know why...
19. i am not a phone talker unless it's my mom. i don't know why. i would rather text all day long than talk on the phone.
20. i am a really fast texter...i love T9
21. i hate ironing. my husband will take his clothes out of the dryer and stuff them in his basket...it makes me nuts. i NEED to fold my clothes right out of the dryer to avoid wrinkles. And if they do get wrinkles, i will put them in the dryer for 10 minutes over getting the iron out. i loath the iron.
22. i love the snooze alarm. i will snooze for an hour if i can. my clock is set 20 minutes fast so i feel like i am getting up later, but i snooze for about 30 minutes. it is my process of waking up. denis HATES it. i have a three snooze allowance before i am kicked out of bed.
23. i think i am allergic to feathers. i used to LOVE feather pillows and down comforters, but one night at heathers, i had a feather pillow and i actually felt like i was dying. i couldn't catch my breath at all. it was so scary. denis hates when i tell people that, cause i feel like am allergic to things now that i never was before. but i hear you can DEVELOP allergies. i feel like i am. denis won't hear it. he is waiting for the day for me to tell him that i am allergic to air. i tell him i am allergic to stupid people.
24. i snort when i get laughing really hard, then i start to wheeze. i think the wheezing is due to my allergies. :)
25. i hate confrontation. i avoid it at all cost. in the words of lydia, i am a big WOOSE.
26. i have no hand-eye coordination. that's why i played soccer in high school and why i was terrible at the trumpet. you should see me try and play guitar hero... yikes.
27. i am incredibly forgetful, unless it has to with remembering a line in a movie or a song. i can remember those all day long. But ask me to remember an appointment or a meeting or that i made plans. forget it. denis said i need medicine.
28. i am a people pleaser. i will say yes to any and everything. i will double book myself and then that is no fun for anyone.
30. i am a terrible speller. thank god for spell check.
31. i used to be addicted to Nyquil. my college roommate had to hid it from me. true story.
32. when i get sick, i regress back into my childhood years. i am such a big baby.
33. i hate soup. unless it is tomato or from Max and Erma's.
34. i love to read at night. it seems to be the only way i can wind down.
35. i was really good a math in high school. it came so easy to me. now i can barely remember my times tables. so sad.
36. i am not a big reality tv fan anymore. it used to be all i watch. the only reality show i watch anymore is American Idol. this writers strike really put a downer on my tv watching.
37. i hate doing the dishes. with a passion. hate it.
38. i am not a very good cook. i made soapy rice once and i have left the cardboard on the bottom of my frozen pizza's more times that i care to admit.
39. i just took down my christmas tree...like two weeks ago. i really like christmas people! don't judge me.
40. i order the same thing all the time. i have a certain dish i eat at every restaurant. i can never order something different. if we eat someplace new, 9 times out of ten i will get chicken fingers or a burger. i never try things that are new.
41. i can't sleep with my mouth open. if my nose is stuffed, sleeping is impossible. this has really frustrated me lately. i haven't been sleeping well at all. except for last night... i took nyquil...hehehe
42. i love playing board games, but i become a different person. i am extremely competitive and i talk alot of junk. BUT no matter how bad i get, it pales in comparison to rachel...
43. i don' t really care for songs that echo. i did until my friend matt said something about it. now they kinda bother me. never let go matt. (matt is one of my blog stalkers. i have a big following! hehehehe)
44. i have been in 12 weddings (that includes heather even though she isn't married yet)
45. i wish i knew sign language.
46. i need to have my camera with me all the time. i may need to capture a moment at any given time.
47. i never knew i could love someone after seeing them just once until i met harmony. i love that girl SOOOOOOOOO much.
48. My friends are my treasures. they are more precious to me that anything.
49. they say you can pick your friends, but you are stuck with your family. i would never use the word stuck. i am blessed beyond words with the most amazing family ever. if God ever gave me the chance to go back and choose, i would chose them a thousand times over.
50. i have the greatest husband ever. he makes me laugh like no other person can. i feel so safe with him. i would also chose him a thousand times over.

you were right ashley, this wasn't as hard as i though. once i got to 25, i almost quit. i would like to see Rachel, Heather, Amy, Jaime and John fill this out too. get crackin'.