your new favorite band.

(yes, this is a shameless plug for my man's band!)

Coming SOON to a city near YOU!

SILVERLINE - US TOUR DATES

• Oct 26 El Paso, Texas -Open Gate Community Church
• Oct 28 Albuquerque, New Mexico -El Rey Theatre
• Oct 29 Las Vegas, Nevada -Valley Bible Fellowship
• Oct 30 Phoenix, Arizona -Southwestern College
• Oct 31 Indio, California -Destiny Special Events Center
• Nov 4 Yorba Linda, California -Yorba Linda Friends Church
• Nov 5 Redlands, California -Packing House
• Nov 6 Bakersfield, California -Valley Bible Fellowship
• Nov 7 Peteluma, California -Phoenix Theatre
• Nov 10 Medford, Oregon -Main 1 Arts Center
• Nov 11 Eugene, Oregon -McDonald Theatre
• Nov 12 Portland, Oregon -Rolling Hills Community Church
• Nov 13 Tacoma, Washington -Temple Theater
• Nov 15 Spokane, Washington -The Service Station
• Nov 16 Tri Cities (Kennewick), Washington -Toyota Center
• Nov 18 Salt Lake City, Utah -Avalon Theater
• Nov 19 Denver, Colorado -Marque Theatre
• Nov 27 Dallas, Texas -The Door
• Dec 5 Bourbonnais, Illinois -College Church of the Nazarene

Today's the day they're on their way!
Go to www.silverlinemusic.com for more information ...
but mostly, GO TO A SHOW!

M is for Minnesota.

just in case you were wondering...

M is for Minnesota.

Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined.

The Mall of America in Bloomington is the size of 78 football fields --- 9.5 million square feet.

The stapler was invented in Spring Valley, Minnesota

Rollerblades were the first commercially successful in-line Roller Skates. Minnesota students Scott and Brennan Olson invented them in 1980, when they were looking for a way to practice Hockey during the off-season. Their design was an ice hockey boot with 3 inline wheels instead of a blade.

Minnesota Inventions: Masking and Scotch tape, Wheaties cereal, Bisquick, HMOs, the bundt pan, Aveda beauty products, and Green Giant vegetables

Minnesota has one recreational boat per every six people, more than any other state.

Minnesota's waters flow outward in three directions: north to Hudson Bay in Canada, east to the Atlantic Ocean, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Author Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove.

Minneapolis’ famed skyway system connecting 52 blocks (nearly five miles) of downtown makes it possible to live, eat, work and shop without going outside.

The climate-controlled Metrodome is the only facility in the country to host a Super Bowl, a World Series and a NCAA Final Four Basketball Championship.

The first practical water skis were invented in 1922 by Ralph W. Samuelson, who steam-bent 2 eight-foot-long pine boards into skies. He took his first ride behind a motorboat on a lake in Lake City.

moving.

it's been in the works for awhile, but today it became real.

i'm moving. once again. this time not down the road and around the corner, i'm moving 1,607 miles. north east. Brainerd, Minnesota ready or not here i come!

today i sent out invitations to my going away party, i reserved a u-haul trailer, and made a countdown for all the important things happening between now and then. (18 days(approx) until my first "niece" is born, 21 days until i see my man, 30 days until my man is in Bend, 33 days until i get to see my family, 35 days until Thanksgiving, 39 days until i move!)

sometime i sit and say two words to God "Minnesota? Really?". Don't get me wrong, i am SO excited for all that is ahead and my heart is (beyond) peaceful that this is right where God is calling me and asking me to go, but never in a million years would i have guessed Minnesota would be my next landing spot! When i moved to Bend and fell in love with all it had to offer, i thought i had found a place i would call home for many, many years. I love my job(s), i love my church, i love the families who live here and have adopted me as their own, i love my friends, i love 180 and i love what God is doing here! There is only one thing missing... my man.

Right now Dean is called to be apart of an awesome Band (www.silverlinemusic.com) and God has opened a million doors for me to walk through towards Minnesota, so as crazy as it seems, i am ready to go. However...

i am not ready to be a Vikings fan... Go Seahawks!

the "Twins" are my sisters not a baseball team... Mariners, i will always believe in you!

Golden Gopher? are you serious? GO DUCKS!!!!!!!!

St*rbucks is not a coffee shop... how many pounds of Looney Bean Espresso will fit in my u-haul?!

Day trips to Lubbock Texas are fully acceptable and not insane.

Don't make fun of me if you catch me recording video on my new camera... it will be like comfort food someday.

i will always be from the Pacific Northwest and so proud of it.

testing. 1,2,3.

i am falling in love with my new camera!
it's amazing and i am so blessed to have it!
i keep telling people it's like going from
driving a automatic "slug-bug" to driving a 12 speed semi-truck!
it has so many things my old camera didn't have and so many things
i still have to figure out, but i'm LOVING it!
here are some "test shots" from today...

Seven and i testing out the self timer...

i'm so blessed to live in a gorgeous town...

fall. it's a beauty.

yum.

yum |yəm| (also yum-yum) informal
-exclamation
used to express pleasure at eating, or at the prospect of eating, a particular food.
-adjective
(of food) delicious.

although this photo contains no food and i am not eating anything at the moment,
my sentiments are the same.

delicious.

i'm feeling totally blessed and excited to have this NEW camera at my finger tips and can't wait to see what kind of art we create together.

not ashamed.

"For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ.
It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes
—the Jew first and also the Gentile."
Romans 1:16

power. who doesn't like power? i for sure like it. i like the power to order my sandwich without olives or the power to pick my friends on Faceb**k. i would say that to some degree each individual likes power.

ashamed. i am ashamed with few things; in fact, i can't think of anything off the top of my head that i am ashamed of.

recently i have been pondering this verse in the context of those who have known the power and yet somehow find themselves ashamed of where it came from. i know a girl who once loved Jesus with the best of them. she loved the church and all it contained. she loved to worship with the best of 'em. she fell asleep to worship music and woke up to the Word. she preached. she prayed. she followed and proclaimed Christ. she, in my opinion was not ashamed.

more recently i have noticed not just her, but other like her shy away from what they have known. i found her struggling to tell me that she had spent time in prayer; "i sat alone and had some soul-searching moments and (long pause) talked to God about my life."

how can the power (among many things) that comes from Life in Christ not be enough to capture one's heart and attention?

how could anyone whose life has collided with the power be ashamed of it?

finding a voice and some tears.

i'm finding my writing voice again. i mentioned in my last post that i was struggling to find the words to express all that is going on in my life at present. Today i woke up and realized there are words in my mouth, mind and heart that are ready to find their voice in the blogging world again. this of course made me really happy, but slightly overwhelmed. where on earth do i even start? so much to say, so many words.

tears, they speak things that words cannot express, let's start there.

when i was a little person i cried due to the physical need to eat, be held or because of pain.

when i was 12 years old i cried a lot. thank you puberty and an incredible influx of hormones.

since then i have cried many a tear. thank you boys, cramps, boys, hormones, emotions and boys.

on July 1st i stepped into the Summer season with more gusto than i ever have had. there was a purpose for this season and i was determined not to miss it. for the next 90 days i did a lot of things; i prayed more, read more, sang more, danced more and worked more.

i also cried more. i'm not sure if i found the tears or they found me but they showed up.

my heart went through a transformation in the last 3 months. i like to say it was tenderized. yes, tenderized like meat. i have always been someone who feels everything deeply. i also am someone who wears my heart on my sleeve, yet when it comes to crying it took a LOT of BIG emotions all packed together to induce the tears to flow.

this has been very different.

someone tells me about the deep things God is doing in their heart? tears.
someone tells me about the joy of a boyfriend doing something incredibly mature and wonderful? tears.
the lights go out during the altar call for 8,000 people? tears.
meeting people whose hearts burst with life and incredible purpose? tears.
praying for 180 girls late at night? tears.
listening to pod-casted messages i've heard a million times? tears.
knowing a little life is growing inside my best friend? tears.
alone reading a book in the sun, when suddenly the Love of God is so real and invades my tanning self? tears.
little person randomly asking for "one more hug?". tears.

my heart has been broken and put back together in a fresh and tender way and i am inclined to embrace it. Please do not be surprised if the next time we share a conversation my face crinkles up and my brow furrows. Do not be alarmed if there is a streak in my makeup or mascara seems misplaced, it's just the tears of a heart learning to feel deeper than the emotions of a heart break or the influx of hormones. i would like to say i now possess the incredible "talent" to cry pretty tears like Jenna Kay or Beth Fischer, but i'm still learning. bare with me while i find my voice and the tears find me.

so much to say.

I have so much to tell the bloggy-world, but i don't have a lot of words ... SO much has been going on in my life in the last couple weeks!!! God is doing AWESOME and AMAZING things! i am excited to see what this next season looks like!

for now please enjoy this video from I Heart Central Oregon & Nick Vujicic